LIBRARY 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


Accessions  NoJ  /v/ e~f~f  .  Class  No. 


(Sreat  Commanbers 

EDITED  BY  JAMES  GRANT   WILSON 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON 


Great  Commanders  Series. 

EDITED  BY  GENERAL  JAMES  GRANT  WILSON. 


Admiral  Farragut. 

By  Captain  A.  T.  MAHAN,  U.  S.  N. 

General  Taylor. 

By  General  O.  O.  HOWARD,  U.  S.  A. 

General  Jackson.  By  JAMES  PARTON. 

General  Greene. 

By  Captain  FRANCIS  V.  GREENE,  U.  S.  A. 

General  J.  E.  Johnston. 

By  ROBERT  M.  HUGHES,  of  Virginia. 

General  Thomas. 

By  HENRY  COPPEE,  LL.  D. 

General  Scott. 

By  General  MARCUS  J.  WRIGHT. 

General  Washington. 

By  General  BRADLEY  T.  JOHNSON. 

IN  PREPARATION. 

General  Hancock. 

By  General  FRANCIS  A.  WALKER. 

General  Sherman. 

By  General  MANNING  F.  FORCE. 

General  Grant. 

By  General  JAMES  GRANT  WILSON. 

Admiral  Porter. 

By  JAMES  R.  SOLEY,  late  Assist.  Sec.  of  Navy. 

General  Lee.          By  General  FITZHUGH  LEE. 

General  Sheridan. 

By  General  HENRY  E.  DAVIES. 


New  York :  D.  APPLETON  &  Co.,  i,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


GREAT    COMMANDERS 

*  *  *  * 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON 


BY 

GENERAL  BRADLEY  T.  JOHNSON 


NEW    YORK 

D.   APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 
1894 


OPYRIGHT,  1894, 
BY  D.  APPLETON   AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved. 


I   DEDICATE  THIS   BIOGRAPHY   TO   MY   GRANDSON, 

BRADLEY  TYLER  JOHNSON,  JR., 

AS  A   REPRESENTATIVE   OF   THOSE   ENDLESS   GENERATIONS 

WHO   WILL  LOVE   GOD   AND   DUTY, 

\  » 

HONOR  AND   LIBERTY,T  COUNTRY  AND   RIGHT, 

AND   BE   PROMPT   TO   STAKE   LIFE  AND   FORTUNE  FOR  THEM, 
PERPETUATING,    AND    TRANSMITTING,    TO    THE    REMOTEST    TIME, 

THAT  AMERICANISM,    OF   WHICH   WASHINGTON 
WAS  THE   GREATEST  EXEMPLAR  AND   ILLUSTRATION. 

B.  T.  J. 


PREFACE. 


WHEN  I  was  invited  to  prepare  this  biography 
for  the  Great  Commanders  Series  the  duty  was  ac 
cepted  with  unaffected  diffidence.  There  are  about 
five  hundred  biographies  of  George  Washington, 
original  and  translations,  published  in  almost  every 
language  of  modern  times,  as  well  as  Greek  and  Latin 
versions  of  them.  It  was  therefore  reasonably  clear 
that  no  new  facts  could  be  educed  to  throw  light 
on  his  career  or  his  character.  This  biography  is 
believed  to  be  the  first  attempt  to  consider  the  mili 
tary  character  of  Washington  and  to  write  his  life  as 
a  soldier.  There  have  been  three  distinct  eras  in 
Washington-olatry. 

The  generation  which  fought  the  Revolution, 
framed  and  adopted  the  Constitution,  and  established 
the  United  States  were  impressed  with  the  most  pro 
found  veneration,  the  most  devoted  affection,  the 
most  absolute  idolatry  for  the  hero,  sage,  statesman. 
In  the  reaction  that  came  in  the  next  generation 
against  "the  old  soldiers,"  who  for  thirty  years  had 
assumed  all  the  honors  and  enjoyed  all  the  fruits  of 
the  victory  that  they  had  won,  accelerated  by  the 
division  in  American  sentiment  for  or  against  the 
French  Revolution,  it  came  to  be  felt,  as  the  younger 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

generation  always  will  feel,  that  the  achievements  of 
the  veterans  had  been  greatly  overrated  and  their 
demigod  enormously  exaggerated.  They  thought, 
as  English  Harry  did  at  Agincourt,  that  "  Old  men 
forget :  yet  all  shall  be  forgot,  but  they'll  remember 
with  advantages  what  feats  they  did  that  day." 

The  fierce  attacks  of  the  Jeffersonian  Democracy 
on  Washington,  his  principles,  his  life,  and  his  hab 
its,  exercised  a  potent  influence  in  diminishing  the 
general  respect  for  his  abilities  felt  by  the  preceding 
generation ;  and  Washington  came  to  be  regarded  as 
a  worthy,  honest,  well-meaning  gentleman,  but  with 
no  capacity  for  military  and  only  mediocre  ability 
in  civil  affairs.  This  estimate  continued  from  the 
beginning  of  Jefferson's  administration  to  the  first 
of  Grant's.  Neither  Marshall  nor  Irving  did  much 
during  that  period  to  place  him  in  a  proper  historical 
light.  The  official  and  judicial  statement  of  the 
case  by  Chief-Justice  Marshall  never  reached  the 
popular  ear,  and  the  laudatory  style  of  Washington 
Irving  did  not  impress  the  popular  conviction. 

But  in  the  last  twenty-five  years  there  has  been  a 
steady  drift  toward  giving  Washington  his  proper 
place  in  history  and  his  appropriate  appreciation  as 
soldier  and  statesman.  The  general  who  never  won 
a  battle  is  now  understood  to  have  been  the  Revolu 
tion  itself,  and  one  of  the  great  generals  of  history. 
The  statesman  who  never  made  a  motion,  nor  devised 
a  measure,  nor  constructed  a  proposition  in  the  con 
vention  of  which  he  was  president,  is  appreciated  as 
the  spirit,  the  energy,  the  force,  the  wisdom  which 
initiated,  organized,  and  directed  the  formation  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  Union 
by,  through,  and  under  it ;  and  therefore  it  seems 


PREFACE.  ix 

now  possible  to  present  him  as  the  Virginian  soldier, 
gentleman,  and  planter,  as  a  man,  the  evolution  of 
the  society  of  which  he  formed  a  part,  representative 
of  his  epoch,  and  his  surroundings,  developed  by 
circumstances  into  the  greatest  character  of  all 
time — the  first  and  most  illustrious  of  Americans. 

The  appreciation  of  Washington  among  other 
nations  has  steadily  increased.  General  Wilson,  the 
editor  of  this  Series,  in  an  address  before  the  New 
York  Society  of  the  Order  of  the  Cincinnati,  at  their 
annual  dinner  at  Delmonico's,  February  22,  1894, 
said:  "When  first  a  visitor  to  the  princely  estate  of 
Strathfieldsaye,  England,  presented  by  the  British 
Government  to  Wellington  for  a  day's  work  at  Water 
loo,  I  was  surprised,  and  also  greatly  gratified,  to  see 
a  portrait  of  Washington,  by  Stuart,  occupying  the 
place  of  honor  in  the  Duke's  drawing-room.  In  an 
swer  to  my  look  of  inquiry,  his  eldest  son,  the  second 
Duke,  remarked,  *  It  was  placed  there  by  my  father, 
who  esteemed  Washington  as  perhaps  the  purest 
and  the  noblest  character  of  modern  times — possibly 
of  all  time — and,  considering  the  material  of  the 
arnves  with  which  he  successfully  met  the  trained 
and  veteran  soldiers  of  the  Old  World,  fairly  entitled 
to  a  place  among  the  Great  Captains  of  the  eight 
eenth  century.'  This  opinion  of  Washington,  enter 
tained  by  the  conqueror  of  Napoleon,  has  never,  so 
far  as  I  am  aware,  been  made  public  before.  I  may 
be  permitted  to  add,  on  the  same  authority,  that  when 
asked  to  take  command  of  the  troops  ordered  to 
New  Orleans  in  1814,  the  Great  Duke  declined  to 
fight  against  Washington's  countrymen.  His  broth 
er-in-law,  Sir  Edward  Pakenham,  was  therefore  sent 
with  Wellington's  well-seasoned  peninsular  veterans, 


X  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

who  had  successfully  driven  the  French  armies  from 
Spain,  and  fell,  as  all  the  world  knows,  in  the  most 
disastrous  defeat  ever  sustained  by  a  British  army." 
I  am  indebted  for  constant  courtesy,  advice,  and 
suggestion  to  General  Wilson,  Mr.  Ainsworth  R. 
Spofford,  Librarian  of  the  National  Library,  Colonel 
John  Scott,  and  General  William  H.  Payne,  of  War- 
renton,  Va.,  whose  relation  to  historic  Virginian  fam 
ilies,  and  whose  wide  and  generous  culture  and 
friendship  have  given  me  much  pleasure  and  great 
assistance,  and  to  the  work  of  Henry  Cabot  Lodge, 
Senator  in  Congress  from  Massachusetts,  whose 
George  Washington  is  the  most  vigorous,  most 
graphic,  and  most  just  account  and  description  yet 
published  of  his  and  my  subject. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — THE  WASHINGTONS  OF  VIRGINIA  i 

II. — FORT  NECESSITY 27 

III. — BRADDOCK .    35 

IV. — THE  PLANTER'S  LIFE  AND  MARRIAGE   .        .        .67 

V. —  THE   BEGINNING  OF  THE   REVOLUTION     .  .  .79 

VI. — THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS — NEW  ENGLAND  IN 

THE  WAR 100 

VII. — WAR,  AND  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE  .  118 

VIII. — THE  NEW  YORK  CAMPAIGN 134 

IX. — THE   NEW  JERSEY  CAMPAIGN  —  THE   DICTATOR 
SHIP       146 

X. — THE  TIMES  THAT  TRIED  MEN'S  SOULS  .       .        .  176 

XL — THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE 193 

XII. — THE  FRENCH  ALLIANCE  AGAIN       ....  206 

XIII.— ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN  .        .218 

XIV. — THE  CAMPAIGN  IN  THE  SOUTH       ....  239 

XV. — YORKTOWN — CARRYING  THE  NEWS  TO  CONGRESS  .  256 

XVI. — PEACE,  AND  SURRENDER  OF  HIS  COMMISSION  .        .  267 

XVII. — THE  UNION  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION     .        .        .  282 

APPENDIX 325 

INDEX 331 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FACING   PAGE 

Colonel  Washington,  in  the  uniform  of  an  officer  of  the 
Colonial  Forces  of  Virginia     .         .         .          Frontispiece 
(From  a  Portrait  by  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  1772,  in  the  possession 
of  General  G.  W.  C.  Lee,  of  Lexington,  Va.) 

Boston,  with  its  Environs 109 

Battle  of  Trenton 151 

Battle  of  Brandywine 164 

Battle  of  Germantown 168 

Battle  of  Monmouth 200 

Route   of  the   Allies,    August-September,    1781,   from   the 

Hudson  to  Yorktown 250 

The  Country  from  Raritan  River,  in   East  Jersey,   to  Elk 

Head,  in  Maryland          .         .         .         .         .         .         .253 

Plan  of  the  Investment  and  Attack  of  York  ....     256 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


CHAPTER   I. 

THE    WASHINGTONS    OF    VIRGINIA. 

GREAT  industry,  enthusiasm,  and  sentiment  have 
been  expended  in  tracing  the  genealogy  of  George 
Washington,  Colonel  of  Virginia  Militia,  Commander 
in  Chief  of  the  Continental  Army,  first  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  greatest  of  all  Americans. 

Ancestor  worship  seems  to  concentrate  in  inten 
sity  as  it  ceases  to  be  general ;  and  as  soon  as  an 
individual  emerges  above  the  mass,  and  distinguishes 
himself  by  achievement  in  action,  admirers  seek  to 
connect  him  with  a  distant  and  illustrious  past, 
through  ancestors  who  have  equaled  or  surpassed 
their  descendant  in  fame. 

So,  as  soon  as  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  was  achieved,  industrious  genealogists  and  ar 
dent  admirers,  both  in  America  and  in  England,  set 
to  work  to  explore  all  the  hereditary  sources  from 
which  the  great  character  displayed  by  the  leader  of 
the  Revolution  had  been  derived.  The  pedigree  of 
the  Virginian  Washingtons  has  been  traced  back  to 
Odin,  or  to  De  Hertburn,  who  came  into  England  on 
the  Norman  raid,  and  held  on  to  a  few  manors, 
prize  of  his  sword  and  his  spear. 


2  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

These  mythical  genealogies  are  based  more  on 
enthusiasm  than  on  proof,  and  on  faith  rather  than 
on  facts.  It  is  a  very  difficult  matter  to  connect  an 
emigrant  who  left  a  certain  place  in  England,  about 
a  certain  year,  with  an  immigrant  of  the  same  name 
who  appeared  in  America  some  months  or  years 
afterward,  unless  there  exist  contemporaneous  proofs 
of  their  identity. 

Identity  of  name  is  no  proof,  while  it  tends  to 
show  a  probable  connection.  We  shall  therefore 
content  ourselves  with  the  facts  about  the  Virgin 
ian  Washingtons,  and  discard  the  myths  and  fables. 
Within  the  last  year  evidence  has  been  discovered 
which  establishes  beyond  doubt  who  John  Washing 
ton,  the  emigrant  to  Virginia,  was,  from  what  part 
of  England  he  came,  and  at  what  time  he  landed  in 
Virginia.  Records  of  Westmoreland  County,  lost 
ever  since  the  Revolution  of  i775-'83,  have  lately 
been  discovered,  deciphered,  and  disclosed,  which 
identify  John  Washington  beyond  a  doubt.  He  was 
major  of  the  militia  of  Westmoreland  on  April  4, 
1655,  during  the  Commonwealth  Government.  His 
deposition,  dated  1674,  states  that  he  was  then  forty- 
five  years  of  age.  He  was  therefore  born  in  1629, 
and  in  1655,  when  he  was  commissioned  major,  he 
was  twenty-six  years  old ;  which  proves  that  he  was 
a  gentleman  of  consideration  and  proper  political 
sympathies  in  the  Dominion  of  Virginia. 

He  returned  to  England,  and  in  1656  was  engaged 
by  Mr.  Edward  Prescott  to  come  over  from  England 
to  Dunkirk  (or  Dantzic)  and  join  Prescott  in  a  trad 
ing  venture  in  the  North  Sea,  and  to  America,  Pres 
cott  supplying  ship  and  venture,  and  Washington  to 
act  as  supercargo  and  first  mate,  and  to  share  the 


THE   WASHINGTONS   OF   VIRGINIA.  3 

profits  equally.  He  accepted  Prescott's  proposition, 
went  to  Dunkirk  or  Dantzic,  Liibeck,  Copenhagen, 
and  Elsinore,  selling  tobacco,  which  appears  to  have 
been  the  cargo,  and  with  the  proceeds  purchased 
goods  for  the  outgoing  voyage.  They  arrived  in 
the  Potomac  early  in  1657,  and,  having  fallen  out 
during  the  voyage,  Washington  tried  to  secure  a 
settlement  from  Prescott  of  his  share  of  the  partner 
ship  in  the  trading  operation. 

Prescott  did  not  deny  Washington's  claim,  but 
one  Sunday  he  set  sail,  and  took  himself  out  of  the 
reach  of  the  law  or  the  reclamations  of  his  first 
mate;  whereupon  the  creditor  began  a  suit  by  way 
of  attachment  in  the  court  of  Westmoreland  County, 
and  proceeded  to  take  depositions  to  establish  the 
facts,  which  depositions  were  duly  recorded  among 
the  archives,  and  furnish  us  now  the  only  authentic  in 
formation  we  have  of  the  first  Virginian  Washington. 
He  was  a  cavalier  in  political  affinities,  or  he  would 
not  have  been  commissioned  major  in  1655  ;  or  he 
may  not  have  had  any  pronounced  sympathy  with 
either  side,  and  the  Government  of  Virginia  may 
have  selected  him  for  that  reason.  He  returned  to 
England  that  same  year  or  the  next,  and  came  out 
with  Prescott  in  1657  and  straightway  married. 

In  the  following  year  he  complained  to  the  Gov 
ernor  and  Council  of  Maryland  that  Edward  Pres 
cott,  his  quondam,  fraudulent,  and  fugitive  partner, 
had,  during  the  voyage  in  the  preceding  year,  been 
accessory  to  the  murder  of  a  poor  old  woman  by 
permitting  her  to  be  tried  for  witchcraft.  The  trial 
consisted  in  throwing  her  overboard.  If  she  floated, 
she  would  have  been  proved  to  be  a  witch  ;  if  she 
sank,  her  innocence  would  be  demonstrated.  She 


4  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

naturally  was  drowned,  and  Major  Washington  pro 
tested  that  that  was  an  outrage  not  to  be  endured. 
What  his  opinion  of  Prescott  would  have  been  if  he 
had  settled  fairly  he  does  not  say,  but  we  may  imagine 
he  would  have  had  a  much  more  tolerant  feeling 
about  the  witch  trial.  There  has  always  been  a 
great  deal  of  human  nature  in  the  Washington 
blood  !  The  Maryland  authorities,  having  taken  the 
matter  into  consideration,  ordered  Mr.  Prescott  to 
attend  them,  and  notified  Major  Washington  to  bring 
his  witnesses  with  him  to  prove  his  charge. 

The  Virginian  gentleman,  whose  traits  neither 
time  nor  circumstance  have  changed,  found  pleasure 
a  duty,  and  informed  the  Maryland  Governor  and 
Council  that  he  was  just  about  to  celebrate  the  bap 
tism  of  his  eldest  child,  that  the  day  was  named,  "  the 
gossips  bid,"  and  that  he  could  not  break  such  an 
engagement  for  a  mere  witch  prosecution  over  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Potomac.  He  said  he  would 
come  at  a  more  convenient  and  comfortable  season. 
The  Marylanders  dismissed  Mr.  Prescott,  and  both 
ered  themselves  no  further  about  the  matter. 

It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  at  the  time  when 
the  constituted  authorities  at  home  under  Sir  Matthew 
Hale,  and  their  co-religionists  in  New  England,  were 
denouncing  the  crime  of  witchcraft  and  punishing 
witches,  the  new  government  of  Maryland,  recently 
established  under  the  authority  of  the  Common 
wealth,  should  have  hesitated  and  refused  to  an 
tagonize  in  action  and  sentiment  the  powers  that 
controlled  "  the  State  of  England." 

John  Washington  was  chosen  vestryman  of  Appo- 
mattox  Parish,  July  3,  1661,  and  was  commissioned 
justice  for  Westmoreland,  June  24,  1662.  He  was  a 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  5 

member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses  for  Westmore 
land  from  1666  to  1677.  He  was  colonel  command 
ing  the  militia,  the  armed  posse  comitatus  of  West 
moreland  County,  and  the  responsibilities  and  labor 
of  the  position  were  incessant  and  severe. 

The  militia  were  the  conservators  of  the  peace 
and  the  wardens  of  the  border.  The  settlements  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Potomac  only  extended  a  short 
distance  beyond  the  bay,  as  they  did  also  on  the  north 
side,  for  the  Virginian  and  Marylander  marched  side 
by  side,  up  the  great  river  to  the  conquest  of  the  path 
less  forest  that  extended  from  the  falls  of  the  Rap- 
pahannock  and  of  the  Potomac  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
The  open  highway  of  the  river  gave  them  easy  means 
of  constant  intercourse  for  pleasure  or  for  business. 

When,  therefore,  news  came,  in  the  summer  of 
1675,  that  the  "naked  Indians  were  in  the  woods" 
and  had  killed  a  man  in  Stafford,  the  country  rose. 
There  was  riding  in  hot  haste  from  house  to  house 
on  both  sides  of  the  river.  Colonel  Washington  and 
Major  Allerton  drove  the  Indians  from  cover  to 
cover,  and  forced  them  over  the  water.  The  Mary- 
landers  under  Major  Truman  closed  in  on  them,  and 
the  combined  forces  surrounded  them  in  a  fort  at 
Piscataway,  on  the  border  of  Charles  County,  in 
Maryland,  not  far  from  the  present  line  of  the  Dis 
trict  of  Columbia.  The  Indians  defended  themselves 
with  vigor,  until  at  last  a  parley  was  held,  under 
which  five  of  the  principal  chiefs  of  the  Susquehan- 
nas  came  out  to  discuss  terms  of  peace,  or  surren 
der,  when  they  were  promptly  put  to  death. 

The  Indians  escaped  from  their  fort,  recrossed 
into  Virginia,  and  revenged  themselves  a  hundred 
fold  for  the  loss  of  their  leaders,  for  they  sacked 


6  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

every  homestead  on  the  frontier  from  the  Potomac 
to  the  James.  They  were  the  moving  cause  of 
Bacon's  rebellion,  when  Bacon  roused  the  house 
holders  of  Virginia  first  to  defend  themselves  against 
the  Indians,  and  next  to  march  on  Jamestown  and 
extort  necessary  reforms  from  Sir  William  Berkeley, 
the  high-tempered,  generous,  stupid  cavalier  Gov 
ernor  of  the  dominion. 

There  is  some  doubt  about  who  was  responsible 
for  these  killings.  It  is  difficult  now  to  get  the  point 
of  view  from  which  the  frontiersmen  and  the  original 
settlers  regarded  the  Indian.  He  was  an  infidel,  a 
savage,  a  wild  beast.  He  had  no  soul.  It  was  not 
only  lawful  but  it  was  meritorious  to  kill  him  on  sight, 
just  as  they  would  a  panther  or  a  rattlesnake.  If 
you  did  not  kill  him,  he  would  kill  you,  and  therefore 
the  thing  to  do  was  to  strike  first,  and  strike  hardest. 
No  faith  was  conceivable  with  animals,  and  therefore 
no  truce  was  to  be  observed.  The  Marylanders  had 
always  been  more  punctilious  about  killing  Indians 
— a  policy  impressed  on  them  by  the  Jesuit  in 
fluence  under  which  their  colony  had  been  planted. 
But  it  had  been  policy  alone,  not  humanity,  that 
directed  their  action.  Peace  was  more  favorable  to 
the  growth  and  security  of  the  young  colony,  and 
the  policy  of  peace  would  render  land  more  easily 
acquired  and  draw  more  adventurers  to  St.  Mary's. 
They  started  with  the  purchase  of  an  Indian  town 
from  the  emperor  of  the  tribe,  and  they  acquired  by 
willing  conveyance  from  the  natives  such  territory 
as  they  required  for  settlement,  for  cultivation,  for 
hunting,  and  for  protection. 

No  Indian  massacre  ever  wiped  out  the  infant 
settlements  on  tide  water,  on  the  Potomac,  in  blood 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  7 

and  ashes,  as  had  happened  on  the  James  ;  and  no 
devastating  war  had  ever  ravaged  the  border,  and 
driven  women  and  children  back  to  the  older  settle 
ments.  Therefore  the  murder  of  the  five  chiefs  at 
Piscataway  roused  the  indignation  of  the  Mary- 
landers  ;  and  their  General  Assembly,  acting  as  the 
Grand  Inquest  for  the  colony,  examined  into  the 
circumstances  and  denounced  the  whole  affair  as 
brutal  and  barbarous.  The  depositions  of  witnesses 
are  spread  out  in  full  on  the  records  ;  they  state  ex 
plicitly  that  Colonel  Washington  refused  to  permit 
further  talk,  and  ordered  the  five  "  to  be  knocked  on 
the  head,"  which  was  done  at  once.  The  lower 
House  proposed  to  punish  Major  Truman,  but  the 
Governor  and  Council  refused  to  assent  to  such 
action,  and  the  matter  was  dropped. 

In  Virginia  it  was  not  considered  in  such  a  seri 
ous  light.  Sir  William  Berkeley  ordered  an  investi 
gation,  and  the  depositions  of  the  witnesses  taken 
at  the  time  under  his  orders  are  to  be  seen  among 
the  records  of  Westmoreland.  They  state  distinctly 
that  Colonel  John  Washington  did  not  order  the 
Indians  to  be  killed,  but  that  Major  Truman  took 
possession  and  control  of  them,  and  killed  them. 
But  this  glimpse  of  the  Washington  nature  in  the 
great  grandfather  of  George  is  much  more  vivid 
than  the  dim  visions  of  De  Hertburns  and  Wessing- 
ton,  conjured  up  by  sentimental  imaginations  of 
admirers  and  worshipers. 

The  Virginian  Washingtons  were  strong,  hardy, 
manly  people — hard  riders,  hard  fighters,  men  of 
action,  meeting  and  dealing  with  the  responsibilities 
of  life  in  a  straightforward,  positive,  clear-headed 
way,  without  the  least  sentiment  of  any  kind  about 


8  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  hardships  of  life.  Life  was  a  fact.  It  required 
nerve,  courage,  fortitude,  fidelity,  to  meet  its  trials 
on  the  frontier,  and  the  English  in  Virginia  trans 
planted  the  highest  hereditary  traits  to  the  new  con 
ditions,  and,  in  the  environment  of  forest  and  savage, 
subdued  Nature  and  man.  They  lived  over  again 
many  of  the  circumstances  which  had  developed 
nerve  and  muscle,  for  a  thousand  years,  in  struggle 
with  the  North  Sea,  and  with  Celt  and  Saxon,  Goth 
and  Northman. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  of  these  latter  generations 
to  designate  the  race  which  settled  the  Atlantic 
seaboard  of  America  under  English  charters  as  the 
Anglo-Saxon.  This  is  a  curious  error,  for  nothing  is 
more  certain  than  that  the  English  adventurers,  from 
Raleigh  down,  were  in  the  main  of  Norman  blood. 
Compare  the  portraits  in  Lodge's  Gallery  of  British 
Worthies — which  display  the  leaders  of  thought  and 
action  at  the  time  of  the  settlement,  and  they  show 
a  race  of  long-headed,  lean-faced,  strong  cheek- 
boned  men — with  the  portraits  in  Brown's  Genesis  of 
America,  of  the  Americans  of  the  Revolution,  and  the 
remarkable  likeness  at  once  appears.  The  same 
gravity,  the  same  contour  of  face  and  head,  appear 
in  the  era  of  Coke  and  Raleigh  as  in  that  of  George 
Mason,  of  Gunston,  and  George  Washington,  of 
Mount  Vernon  ;  and  a  visitor  to  any  of  the  courts  of 
the  old  counties  of  Virginia  will  see  to-day  on  court 
day  the  same  grave  deportment,  the  same  reserved 
carnage,  the  same  courteous  intercourse,  as  was  ex 
hibited  by  their  ancestors  of  six  generations  ago ; 
and  the  characteristics,  physical  and  moral,  of  person 
and  manners  were  and  are  Norman,  and  not  Saxon. 

The  British  race  that  has  been  created  by  the 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  g 

Union  there,  by  trade,  by  industrialism,  has  become 
more  and  more  Saxon  in  its  characteristics;  but  the 
people  who  settled  Virginia,  and  have  held  it  ever 
since,  are  the  best  specimens  who  now  exist  of  the 
breed  who  roved  the  Spanish  main  under  Hawkins 
and  Blake,  who  with  Raleigh  sought  El  Dorado,  and 
under  Captain  John  Smith  explored  the  Chesapeake, 
or  who  fought  the  Grand  Armada  under  Lord  How 
ard,  of  Effingham,  and  won  for  mankind  the  freedom 
of  the  seas. 

The  Washingtons,  like  their  neighbors,  addressed 
themselves  to  the  duties  of  life  with  severe  sim 
plicity.  The  immigrant  soon  after  his  arrival  mar 
ried  Anne  Pope,  daughter  of  Colonel  Nathanael 
Pope ;  was  a  thrifty,  energetic,  public-spirited  man ; 
was  colonel  of  the  militia,  vestryman  of  his  parish, 
member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses.  Land  then 
could  be  had  for  the  asking,  and  it  only  required  the 
courage  and  energy  to  examine  it  to  select  and 
locate  the  best.  Before  his  death,  in  1677,  John 
Washington  acquired  large  possessions  and  numer 
ous  servants,  with  horses  and  horned  cattle  and 
swine,  and  all  the  wealth  of  a  new  country.  By  Anne 
Pope  he  had  Lawrence,  John,  and  Anne  Washington. 
His  son  Lawrence  married  Mildred  Warner,  by  whom 
he  had  John,  Augustine,  and  Mildred  Washington. 
Augustine  (pronounced  Austin)  Washington  first 
married  Jane  Butler,  who  died  in  1728,  leaving  two 
sons,  Lawrence  and  Augustine.  Augustine  then  mar 
ried  Mary  Ball,  of  a  well-known  and  established 
Westmoreland  family. 

The  Balls  were  people  of  position  and  comfort 
able  fortune,  and  Mary  Ball's  education  was  such  as 
was  appropriate  to  her  station  in  life  and  to  the 


10  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

times  in  which  she  lived.  Her  father,  whose  estate 
was  Epping  Forest,  engaged  a  tutor  for  his  young 
family  of  boys  and  girls,  who  under  his  instruction 
acquired  the  arts  of  reading,  writing,  and  ciphering. 
In  the  daily  intercourse  with  their  own  family,  and 
with  their  neighbors,  they  learned  to  love  God  and 
honor  the  king,  to  speak  the  truth,  and  be  respectful 
to  their  betters  and  seniors,  rendering  to  their  parents 
affection  and  respect  absolutely  without  limit. 

In  due  time  Mary  Ball  was  introduced  to  the 
vice-regal  court  at  Williamsburgh,  where  she  ob 
served  and  was  instructed  in  and  imitated  the  "  mode  " 
of  the  great  world,  and  learned  how  to  enter  a  room 
and  how  to  leave  it,  how  to  make  her  courtesy,  and 
how  to  manage  her  train  and  her  fan.  She  made  an 
impression  on  society  as  a  beauty,  as  contemporary 
letters  show,  and  after  her  "  fling  "  of  a  season  she 
returned,  happy  and  contented,  to  her  country  home 
to  take  up  her  life  as  the  wife  of  some  honest  Vir 
ginian  colonel,  to  become  the  mother  of  his  children 
and  the  manager  of  his  servants,  his  estates,  and  of 
himself,  as  has  always  been  the  custom  there,  and 
to  live  serene,  happy,  and  contented  in  that  state 
of  life  into  which  it  should  please  God  to  call  her. 
Fulfilling  her  destiny,  she  married  the  widower 
Augustine  Washington  with  his  two  sons,  and  bore 
him  four  sons  and  two  daughters. 

The  eldest,  George,  was  born  at  Bridge's  Creek,  in 
Westmoreland,  on  February  u,  O.  S.,  1732  ;  February 
22,  N.  S.  Three  years  after  this  event  the  house 
was  burned,  and  Augustine  Washington  moved  his 
family  to  another  house  and  plantation  in  Stafford, 
on  the  north  side  of  the  Rappahannock,  opposite  the 
village  of  Fredericksburg.  Here  he  died,  in  1743, 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  i  i 

leaving  a  large  landed  estate,  stocked  with  servants 
and  cattle,  and  this  large  family  to  the  care  of  the 
young  widow. 

Much  effusion  has  been  expended  over  the  won 
derful  traits  of  "  Mary,  the  mother  of  Washington  "  ; 
and  her  sagacity,  her  influence  in  forming  character, 
her  example  in  the  way  of  method,  order,  and  fru 
gality,  have  been  greatly  exploited  as  having  exerted 
a  prodigious  influence  on  the  career  of  her  illustri 
ous  son.  But  it  is  fair  to  say  that  Mary  Washington 
was  only  a  fair  example  of  hundreds  of  Virginian 
widows,  who,  before  and  since  her  time,  deprived  of 
the  support  of  a  husband,  have  deliberately,  seri 
ously,  and  voluntarily  dedicated  their  lives  to  the 
training  of  their  children,  and  the  preservation  of 
their  estates,  committed  to  them  by  the  devotion,  the 
respect,  and  the  intelligence  of  the  father  and  hus 
band  who  had  gone.  Such  instances  of  self-sacrifice 
are  usual  in  that  society,  and  the  example  forms 
strong  characters,  brave  and  good  men  and  women. 
Mary  Washington  was  left  in  charge  of  several  plan 
tations,  many  servants,  the  two  stepsons,  Lawrence 
and  Augustine,  and  her  own  children,  George, 
Samuel,  John  Augustine,  Charles,  and  Betty  ;  another 
daughter,  Mildred,  having  died  in  infancy. 

Augustine  Washington,  after  his  marriage,  had 
paid  a  visit  to  England  with  his  wife,  which  has  led 
to  a  tradition  that  his  eldest  son  George  was  born 
near  London.  But  it  is  certain  that  he  was  born  in 
Westmoreland  County,  Virginia.  By  the  will  of 
Augustine  his  large  landed  estate  was  equitably  di 
vided  between  his  children  of  the  first  and  second 
marriage  alike.  To  Lawrence  he  left  the  estate  on 
Hunting  Creek,  in  Fairfax  County — afterward  named, 


12  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

by  Lawrence,  Mount  Vernon,  in  honor  of  his  old  com 
mander,  Admiral  Vernon — and  to  George  the  place 
on  the  Rappahannock.  Mrs.  Washington  was  made 
guardian  of  her  own  children,  with  control  and  man 
agement  of  their  property  until  they  became  of  age. 
She  purchased  a  small  one-story,  three-roomed  house 
in  Fredericksburg,  and  moved  from  the  plantation 
into  the  town.  But  she  managed  all  her  affairs  her 
self  ;  she  did  precisely  what  every  lady  in  her  station 
did  then  in  that  society,  and  does  now. 

Mrs.  Washington  had  a  large  family  of  children, 
for  her  servants  were  her  children,  next  to  her  real 
children.  She  watched  them,  guided  them,  controlled 
them,  trained  them  in  manners  and  in  morals,  in 
ideas  and  in  faith,  day  and  night,  morning  and 
evening.  In  due  season  the  geese  were  to  be 
plucked  to  provide  for  pillows  and  beds,  the  hens 
and  turkeys  to  be  set,  the  sheep  to  be  sheared,  the 
wool  to  be  washed,  carded,  spun,  and  woven,  the 
hides  to  be  saved  and  tanned,  the  winter  shoes  to  be 
made  and  socks  to  be  knit,  and  clothes  to  be  issued  ; 
and  with  this,  the  daily  care  of  the  plantation  and  the 
house,  the  weighing  out  of  the  "allowance"  to  each 
family,  the  examination  as  to  the  cleanliness  of  the  per 
sons  and  the  houses  of  the  "  family."  This  was  part 
of  the  domestic  police,  and  every  part  and  detail 
was  executed  under  the  direct  eye  of  the  mistress. 
In  the  garden  and  on  the  plantation  the  same  method 
of  personal  superintendence  was  applied.  The  head 
gardener  and  the  overseer  every  morning  came  to 
"  the  house  "  for  "  orders,"  and  the  mistress  gave  mi 
nute  directions  as  to  everything  that  was  to  be  done 
by  them  during  the  day.  And  after  the  details  of 
domestic  housekeeping  were  through  in  the  morning, 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  13 

she  would  make  a  tour  of  inspection  over  the  garden, 
and  then  mount  a  one-horse  stick  gig  and  cross  the 
Rappahannock  by  the  ferry,  and  see  everything  on 
the  plantation.  Such  a  life  requires  energy,  intelli 
gence,  perseverance ;  it  begets  methods  of  order, 
frugality,  and  exactness ;  and  with  the  constant  ex 
ample  before  his  eyes,  at  home  and  everywhere  he 
went,  among  his  relations  and  friends,  the  boy  Wash 
ington  must  have  acquired  habits  which  accompanied 
and  controlled  him  all  his  life. 

There  were  no  schools,  but  Mrs.  Washington 
understood  perfectly  the  value  of  education  to  a 
young  gentleman.  Many  young  men  of  the  neigh 
borhood,  her  own  brother  Joseph  Ball  among  them, 
had  been  sent  "home"  for  education.  Oxford  was 
full  of  Virginians ;  Fitzhugh,  Robinson,  Randolph, 
Burwell,  Wormly,  and  many  others  were  represented 
there,  and  at  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  It  was 
impossible,  with  the  limited  means  of  the  Washing- 
tons,  to  send  them  home  for  education.  Lawrence 
Washington  had  been  sent  home  by  his  father  for 
that  purpose,  and  that  was  as  much  as  was  reason 
able  ;  the  rest  of  the  boys  had  to  take  their  chances. 
So  George  was  put  in  charge  of  William  Hobby,  an  old 
fellow  of  the  neighborhood,  sexton  and  school-teacher. 

It  does  not  at  all  follow  that  because  Hobby  was 
a  sexton  that  he  might  not  also  have  been  an  M.  A. 
of  Oxford,  or  a  gentleman  by  birth.  After  the  rising 
of  1745  in  England  the  adherents  of  the  Stuarts 
were  exported  by  the  hundred  to  Virginia  and  sold 
at  public  vendue.  A  groom  of  the  chambers,  or  a 
maid  of  honor,  would  get  at  court  a  grant  of  fifty  or 
a  hundred  prisoners,  captured  by  the  Duke  of  Cum 
berland,  and  crammed  into  the  jails  of  the  northern 


14  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

counties,  where  typhus  and  smallpox  destroyed  them 
by  the  score;  and  gifts  of  prisoners  were  negotiable 
property,  a  kind  of  sight  draft  directed  to  any  jailer 
or  sheriff  in  the  kingdom,  and  were  sold  at  a  market 
price.  So  old  Hobby  may  have  been  a  gentleman 
although  he  was  a  sexton,  and  may  have  been  a  uni 
versity  man  though  he  did  keep  an  old  field  school. 
Hobby  taught  the  three  Rs,  and  George  learned  to 
write  a  good,  legible  hand,  which  must  have  been 
learned  at  that  time,  and  which  was  not  taught  by 
an  illiterate  man. 

When  George  was  seven  or  eight  years  old,  Law 
rence  returned  from  England  a  well-set-up,  educated 
gentleman,  and  one  of  the  finest  traits  of  his  char 
acter  was  the  affection  and  interest  he  at  once  took 
in  the  little  stepbrother.  He  felt  what  a  difference 
there  would  be  between  his  life  and  that  of  the  un 
kempt  country  lad  who  followed  him  around  with 
admiring  eyes  and  affectionate  docility.  Big  brother 
Lawrence  was  the  hero  of  George's  youth.  Law 
rence,  with  many  young  Virginians  of  quality,  volun 
teered  for  the  expedition  under  Admiral  Vernon 
against  the  hated  Papist  and  Spaniard  in  the  West 
Indies,  and  was  present  and  helped  at  the  capture  of 
Carthagena.  In  due  time  Lawrence  returned  with 
the  approbation  of  his  commanding  officer  and  the 
applause  of  his  comrades,  and  the  boy  followed  him 
around,  fearful  to  lose  one  word  of  the  wonderful 
story  of  hairbreadth  escapes  by  flood  and  field.  As 
the  boy  grew  older  he  needed  better  instruction  and 
training  than  Hobby  could  give  him,  and  he  was  sent 
to  his  half-brother  Augustine's,  on  Bridge  Creek,  in 
Westmoreland,  to  get  the  advantage  of  a  neighbor 
hood  school  kept  by  Thomas  Williams. 

5 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  I5 

When  George  was  thirteen  years  of  age,  he  did 
the  things  and  developed  the  traits  usual  in  a  Vir 
ginia  country  boy  of  his  age  and  period.  A  lad  in 
that  society  rides  a  horse  from  the  time  he  is  five 
years  old,  and  has  a  horse  of  his  own,  which  he  uses 
at  his  pleasure.  He  catches  him  at  pasture,  saddles 
and  bridles  him,  and  rides  him  everywhere — to  the 
neighbors,  on  an  errand  for  his  mother,  to  borrow 
some  sugar,  for  his  father,  to  take  back  a  bridle,  to 
church  on  Sunday,  to  school  on  week  days.  By  the 
time  a  boy  is  thirteen  his  horse  becomes  part  of  him 
self  as  much  as  his  clothes,  and  he  would  as  readily 
appear  in  public  without  one  as  without  the  other. 
In  the  country,  boys  find  amusement  and  pleasure  in 
the  expenditure  of  the  energy  of  youth  and  health. 
They  run  races,  they  wrestle,  and  they  fight.  In  the 
society  in  which  Washington  was  born,  like  the  Eng 
lish  society  in  the  preceding  century,  of  which  it  was 
a  type,  it  was  considered  natural,  proper,  and  healthy 
for  boys  to  fight. 

Quarrels  were  discountenanced,  but  mothers 
taught  their  sons  that,  if  ever  a  falling  out  occurred 
between  comrades,  the  best  thing  to  do  was  to  strip 
off  their  jackets  and  settle  it — fight  it  out,  and  settle 
it,  not  quarrel  over  it.  At  a  school  where  every  boy's 
father  had  been  shot  at  by  or  had  shot  an  Indian,  the 
athletic  sports  most  affected  would  naturally  be  of  a 
military  cast.  George,  like  every  other  healthy  boy, 
had  been  playing  soldier  and  drilling  the  little  negroes 
on  the  plantation,  and  about  the  house,  ever  since 
he  had  donned  boy's  clothes ;  and  at  the  Williams 
school  a  boy  who  had  a  brother  who  wore  a  scarlet 
coat  and  bore  the  King's  commission,  and  who  had 
heard  from  that  brother  glowing  accounts  of  real 


l6  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

war  under  Admiral  Vernon  and  General  Wentworth 
against  the  Spaniards,  was  of  necessity  a  leader,  es 
pecially  when  that  boy  was  well  grown,  muscular 
and  strong,  and  quite  prompt  to  enforce  respect  by 
a  remarkably  stalwart  and  ready  right  arm. 

Lawrence  Washington  had  married  Anne  Fairfax, 
the  daughter  of  William  Fairfax,  of  Belvoir,  the  cousin 
of  Lord  Fairfax,  and  was  living  on  his  estate  of 
Mount  Vernon  in  comfort,  without  ostentation,  and 
plenty,  without  extravagance.  He  felt  the  inequality 
in  social  conditions  between  himself  and  his  young 
stepbrother,  and  appreciated  the  immense  advan 
tage  that  social  culture  and  elegant  society  gives  a 
man  in  the  world,  and  he  made  a  point  of  having 
him  at  Mount  Vernon  as  much  as  possible.  There 
he  was  introduced  at  Belvoir,  and  a  well-grown, 
handsome  lad  of  fourteen  is  much  more  of  a  man 
in  primitive  societies  than  in  older  ones,  where  con 
ventionalities  thrust  the  young  into  the  background. 
So  young  Washington  was  a  favorite  among  the 
Virginian  English  society  of  the  Northern  Neck. 

It  has  been  represented  that  that  society  lived  in 
semisavage  profusion  and  pomp,  surrounded  by  troops 
of  slaves ;  that  the  planter  lived  in  a  house  where 
the  glass  in  the  windows  was  often  broken,  though 
the  sideboard  groaned  beneath  the  remnant  of  the 
plate,  the  rest  of  which  had  been  melted  down  for  the 
King,  at  home ;  that  there  were  holes  in  the  damask 
curtains,  though  the  walls  were  decorated  with  Lely's 
masterpieces,  portraits  of  ancestresses  brought  from 
home ;  that  the  women  were  ignorant,  and  the  men 
were  boorish  examples  of  the  day  and  manners  of 
Squire  Western.  These  views  are  as  erroneous  as 
this  picture  is  false. 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  17 

No  Virginian  ever  spoke  of  "slaves."  By  a  cu 
rious,  unconscious  cerebration,  the  word  was  dis 
tasteful  to  a  people  who  valued  liberty  as  their  most 
precious  possession,  and  the  retainers  of  the  family 
were  called  "  servants."  They  were  as  much  the 
family  as  the  children,  or  the  wife,  or  the  mother. 
The  relation  of  master  and  servant  was  not  a  prop 
erty  relation  at  all.  It  was  the  domestic  institution  as 
it  had  always  existed  in  every  primitive  society,  as  it 
had  been  practiced  by  the  patriarchs,  and  recognized 
and  regulated  by  Moses  and  the  prophets.  A  man's 
"  wife,  his  manservant,  and  his  maidservant,"  were 
placed  in  the  same  category  in  the  decalogue,  and  it 
was  the  Virginians  who  prevented  the  appearance  of 
the  word  "  slaves  "  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  where  reference  is  made  to  the  servile  class  of 
the  population  as  "persons  held  to  labor"  and  as 
"other  persons." 

"  Slave  "  was  a  word  tabooed  in  the  language  of 
ladies  and  gentlemen;  it  was  vulgar;  it  was  "com 
mon,"  to  use  the  vernacular.  It  was  not  until  the 
invention  of  the  cotton  gin  led  to  a  great  develop 
ment  in  the  cotton-producing  States  that  "  servants  " 
began  to  be  "  slaves,"  and  to  be  considered  on  ac 
count  of  their  mercantile  value,  and  the  consequent 
sectional  jealousy  which  viewed  with  alarm  the 
growth  of  the  Southern  section  which  threatened  to 
transfer  the  power  from  east  of  the  Hudson,  that 
"  slave  "  began  to  be  a  word  in  the  common  vocabu 
lary,  used  on  the  one  side  as  a  taunt,  on  the  other  as 
a  defiance.  And  there  was  no  barbaric  extravagance 
or  savage  profusion.  The  planter's  estate  fur 
nished  everything  the  family  consumed  except 
sugar  and  coffee;  tea  was  practically  unknown. 


!8  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Bear,  venison,  wild  turkeys,  pheasants,  partridges 
abounded  in  the  woods;  ducks  and  swans,  oysters  of 
the  finest,  and  fish  of  every  variety  crowded  the 
rivers  and  bays,  and  a  huntsman  and  fisherman,  de 
tailed  for  the  sole  duty  of  stocking  the  larder,  kept 
every  household  fully  supplied.  Beef,  mutton,  bacon, 
and  hams  were  provided  also,  while  the  fields  pro 
duced  wheat  and  corn,  from  which  bread  of  unrivaled 
excellence  was  made ;  nor  were  the  manners  most  in 
vogue  those  of  Squire  Western. 

The  heir  of  every  family  was  educated  at  home, 
and  read  his  terms  at  Oxford.  At  the  University 
of  Edinburgh  there  was  a  club,  requisite  to  the  mem 
bership  of  which  was  the  fact  that  the  applicant  must 
have  been  born  in  Virginia.  Within  a  day's  ride 
of  Mount  Vernon  were  a  dozen  country  houses  the 
masters  of  which  were  university  graduates  and  had 
made  the  grand  tour — the  Fitzhughs  at  Eagle's  Nest 
and  at  Marmion,  the  Masons  at  Gunston  Kail,  the 
Lees  at  Stratford,  the  Carters  at  Sabine  Hall,  the 
Fauntleroys  in  Richmond. 

All  along  the  Potomac  and  the  Rappahannock 
were  large  roomy,  pretentious  homes,  some  of  which 
were  on  English  models  from  Italian  architects,  the 
great  majority  simple  and  plain  mansions,  in  which 
gathered  and  circulated  a  refined,  elevated,  traveled 
society.  Colonel  Lewis  Littlepage,  of  New  Castle, 
had  been  the  chamberlain  of  the  last  King  of  Poland. 
Colonel  John  Parke  had  been  aid-de-camp  to  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  at  Blenheim,  and  had  carried 
the  dispatch  of  victory  to  Queen  Anne,  and  received 
from  her  fair  hand,  for  reward,  her  miniature  set  in 
brilliants. 

Colonel  William  Byrd,  of  Westover,  had  been  the 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  ICj 

intimate  friend  and  was  the  constant  correspondent 
of  the  Earl  of  Orrery,  the  inventor  of  the  astronom 
ical  instrument  which  bears  his  name.  Lord  Fair 
fax  had  been  one  of  the  bucks  of  the  court,  the  com 
panion  of  Addison  and  Dick  Steele,  and  had  con 
tributed  to  the  Spectator. 

As  was  and  is  the  Virginia  custom,  the  families 
of  wealth  in  the  Dominion  were  closely  bound  by 
frequent  intermarriages,  by  ties  of  blood  and  friend 
ship,  and  they  constituted  one  large  circle.  One 
household  would  move  over  to  another  with  servants, 
children,  carriages,  horses,  and  dogs,  and,  after  a 
stay  of  two  or  three  weeks,  all  would  move  to  a 
third,  and  so  go  on  accumulating  as  they  went,  until 
it  became  time  for  all  to  go  home  to  arrange  for  the 
coming  year.  But  home  was  the  last  place  the  Vir 
ginian  wanted  to  go  unless  he  was  accompanied  by 
a  house  full  of  cousins.  This  constant  social  inter 
course,  free  but  reserved,  cordial  but  dignified,  pro 
duced  a  type  of  manners  of  the  highest  grade  ;  and 
the  characteristics  of  Washington,  which  for  these  hun 
dred  years  have  been  descanted  upon  as  of  phenom 
enal  ceremony  and  extraordinary  dignity,  were  the 
ways  and  mariners  of  his  class,  with  whom  he  passed 
his  earlier  years.  He  was  an  exemplar  of  the  culture 
of  his  society,  and  in  no  remarkable  way  different 
from  the  gentlemen  of  his  station  in  life  all  around 
him.  He  was  a  typical  Virginian  of  his  epoch. 

At  this  time  the  experience  of  Lawrence  prompted 
George  to  desire  a  commission  as  midshipman  in  the 
British  navy;  but  Uncle  Joseph  Ball,  who  had 
studied  law  in  London  and  who  was  settled  there 
as  a  practicing  attorney,  discountenanced  the  idea 
with  the  stolid  obstinacy  of  the  middle-class  English- 
3 


20  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

man,  whose  only  idea  of  the  naval  service  was  de 
rived  from  the  press  gang,  and  who  thought  it  un 
becoming  for  his  provincial  nephew  to  aspire  to  the 
position  of  a  gentleman  and  to  bear  the  King's  com 
mission.  The  instruction  of  Williams's  school  had 
imparted  sufficient  skill  to  make  young  Washington 
a  competent  surveyor.  There  are  plats  of  surveys 
now  in  the  General  Land  Office  of  Virginia  made  by 
him  which  would  do  credit  to  any  youth  of  his  age 
at  the  present  day.  Lord  Fairfax  had  acquired  all 
the  land  lying  between  the  Potomac  and  the  Rappa- 
hannock  Rivers,  and  a  right  line  drawn  from  the 
principal  source  of  the  one  to  the  head  of  the  other. 
This  great  principality  was  unexplored  save  by  the 
trapper  and  hunter.  Across  it  ran  the  great  war 
trail  of  the  Five  Nations,  passing  northeast  and  south 
west.  In  the  spring  of  1748,  when  young  Washing 
ton  had  just  passed  his  sixteenth  birthday,  Lord  Fair 
fax  employed  him  as  surveyor  to  explore  and  locate 
his  lands  beyond  the  Blue  Ridge,  up  to  the  principal 
source  of  the  Potomac,  his  compensation  being  fixed 
at  a  doubloon  a  day,  with  the  possibility  of  increas 
ing  it  to  six  pistoles. 

In  March,  he  and  George  Fairfax  rode  over  the 
mountain  by  Ashby's  Gap  and  through  the  lovely 
valley  of  Virginia  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  Wills  Creek, 
on  the  Potomac,  and  on  their  return,  in  April,  Lord 
Fairfax  was  so  much  pleased  at  their  report  of  the 
country,  that  he  moved  over  to  a  new  settlement,  in 
what  is  now  the  County  of  Clarke,  and  established  a 
hunting  lodge  which  he  named  Greenway  Court.  The 
ensuing  three  years  were  passed  in  the  woods  in  this 
employment  as  surveyor.  His  earnings,  which  were 
very  large  compared  with  the  price  of  land — one 


THE   WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  21 

day's  wages  sufficed  to  pay  for  many  acres — were  in 
vested  in  land,  the  location  of  which  to  this  day 
attests  his  admirable  judgment.  Probably  this  ex 
perience  as  a  surveyor  was  the  most  valuable  epoch 
of  his  life.  He  was  taught  self-control,  alertness, 
quick  decision,  prompt  action.  Living  in  the  woods, 
where  a  man's  life  is  guarded  alone  by  himself,  teaches 
him  to  be  on  guard  at  all  times,  by  day  and  by  night ; 
and  in  such  a  life  every  man's  tomahawk  was  loose, 
every  man's  rifle  was  unslung,  his  bullet  pouch  was 
pulled  around  so  as  to  be  handy,  and  never  for  a 
moment  was  the  guard  relaxed.  A  watch  was  set 
every  night,  and  on  the  march  by  day  an  advance 
scout  was  sent  out,  and  a  wary  lookout  kept  up. 

This  life  under  the  open  sky,  when  a  man  carries 
his  life  in  his  hand,  and  a  keen  eye  and  sharp  ear  and 
quick  hand  are  his  surest  safeguard,  develops  a  self- 
possession,  an  endurance,  a  patience,  and  a  persever 
ance  unknown  in  other  states  of  society.  One  who 
spends  days  in  the  forest,  without  exchanging  an  un 
necessary  word  with  a  comrade,  becomes  a  taciturn 
man ;  whose  life  every  minute  is  only  protected  by 
himself,  becomes  of  necessity  self-reliant ;  whose  time 
is  passed  in  the  solitude  of  Nature,  absorbs  the  gravity 
of  the  woods  and  the  mountains.  In  such  a  school 
George  Washington  passed  the  ensuing  three  years 
of  his  life. 

Returning  from  his  surveying  expedition  in  the 
valley,  Lord  Fairfax  procured  him  the  appointment 
of  public  surveyor,  which  insured  him  steady  em 
ployment,  and  gave  his  work  the  stamp  of  official 
authority.  While  thus  employed,  he  enjoyed  the 
benefit  of  the  cultivated  society  assembled  by  Lord 
Fairfax  at  Greenway  Court.  There  he  found  a  library 


22  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

of  English  books,  and  read  the  Spectator  and  the 
History  of  England,  the  only  opportunity  which  he 
had  had  up  to  that  time  to  read  books.  His  educa 
tion  had  been  by  action  and  by  living,  by  observa 
tion  of  Nature  and  men,  and  thoughtfulness  and 
analysis  of  what  he  had  observed. 

In  September,  1751,  Lawrence  went  to  Barbadoes 
for  his  health,  taking  his  young  brother  with  him,  and 
returned  the  following  spring.  He  died  in  July, 
1752,  leaving  his  whole  estate  to  his  infant  daughter, 
with  the  remainder,  in  case  she  died  without  issue,  to 
his  brother  George,  with  the  latter  as  guardian  of  the 
infant  and  executor  of  the  will.  This  produced  an 
entire  change  in  the  prospects  and  position  of  the 
young  surveyor.  His  self-denial  in  working  and  in 
saving  his  earnings,  and  his  judgment  in  investing 
them  in  well-selected  and  well-located  lands  during 
his  experience  as  a  surveyor,  had  made  him  a  large 
holder  of  wild  land  along  the  Potomac  and  the 
Shenandoah.  Lawrence  Washington  was  a  man  of 
large  views  and  forcible  character. 

The  struggle  that  had  been  going  on  between 
England  and  France  in  Europe  for  centuries  had 
been  extended  to  the  New  World.  The  French 
settled  Canada  and  held  the  Great  Lakes  and  their 
outlet  to  the  sea.  The  English  planted  colonies 
along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  began  feeling  out 
beyond  the  mountains  toward  the  vast,  unexplored 
wilderness  which  stretched  in  unbroken  solitude 
toward  the  setting  sun. 

The  French  acquired  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  and  explored  what  they  believed  to  be  its 
source  in  Minnesota.  They  established  communica 
tions  between  their  northern  and  southern  posts; 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  23 

they  navigated  the  Great  Lakes;  they  pushed  up 
the  Ohio;  and  they  were  overrunning  the  country 
on  the  right  bank  of  that  river.  If  they  were  suc 
cessful,  Protestant  Virginia  would  be  walled  in  by 
the  Blue  Mountains,  held  by  Catholic  France,  and 
confined  to  the  narrow  seaboard. 

The  English  of  Virginia,  like  their  race  every 
where,  pushed  their  trade  before  them  and  followed  it 
with  their  flag.  They  organized  the  Ohio  Company, 
with  men  and  means  to  settle  the  disputed  territory, 
and  made  Lawrence  Washington  their  general  man 
ager.  No  man  could  live  on  the  frontier  with  the 
threat  of  Indian  massacre  ever  present  to  him,  and 
the  Indian  backed  by  the  Frenchman  ;  no  man  whose 
ancestor  had  fought  under  English  Harry  at  Agin- 
court  but  must  have  felt  that  the  question  of  Eng 
lish  or  French  supremacy  in  America  must  eventually 
be  decided  by  arms.  Four  generations  of  Virginian 
Englishmen  had  been  fighting  the  brutes  set  on  them 
by  the  French.  No  man  could  remember  the  time 
when  the  tale  of  Indian  horrors  had  not  been  told  by 
mother  and  grandmother  around  the  fire,  with  bated 
breath,  to  the  children. 

Lawrence  Washington,  like  most  of  the  young 
Virginian  gentlemen  of  his  day,  had  seen  service. 
He  procured  for  his  brother,  aged  nineteen,  the  posi 
tion  of  assistant  adjutant  general  for  the  Northern 
District  of  Virginia  with  the  rank  of  major,  and  pro 
vided  as  instructors  for  him  Adjutant  Bataille  Muse, 
a  Virginian,  who  probably  had  served  in  the  Low 
Countries,  as  many  young  Virginian  gentlemen  of  the 
day  did,  and  Jacob  Van  Braam,  an  old  Dutch  soldier, 
whom  Lawrence  Washington  had  picked  up  on  the 
Carthagena  expedition. 


24  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

He  was  determined  that  his  younger  brother 
should  be  equipped  for  that  stage  of  life  to  which  it 
should  please  God  to  call  him;  just  as  our  genera 
tion  has  seen  young  men  prepared  by  military  educa 
tion,  training,  and  discipline,  for  the  trials  that  were 
to  come  to  them. 

Lawrence  Washington's  death,  George  Washing 
ton's  reputation  and  experience  as  surveyor,  his 
thrift  and  intelligence  in  the  acquisition  of  wild 
land,  his  executorship  and  guardianship  of  the  heir 
ess  of  Mount  Vernon,  and  his  residence  there,  all 
gave  him  weight  and  consideration  in  the  communi 
ty  ;  and  when  the  Lieutenant  Governor  of  Virgina — 
a  choleric  Scotchman,  Dinwiddie — required  a  man  to 
warn  off  the  French  trespassers  from  that  part  of 
Virginia  which  extended  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  the 
master  of  Mount  Vernon  was  pre-eminently  the  fittest 
man  for  the  work. 

A  former  envoy  of  the  Governor  had  been 
stopped  by  Indian  threats — instigated  by  French 
craft — far  short  of  the  French  posts,  and  had  turned 
back  utterly  unsuccessful.  The  service  needed  a 
man  of  varied  qualities  and  acquirements;  a  man  of 
will  and  force;  a  woodsman,  for  he  would  be  re 
quired  to  meet  and  overcome  many  obstacles  from 
man  and  Nature,  and  to  face  the  perils  of  the  wild 
woods  which  stretched  unbroken  from  the  Shenan- 
doah  to  the  Rockies  and  to  Lake  Michigan ;  a  gen 
tleman  of  culture  and  information,  for  he  must  meet, 
on  equal  terms,  men  trained  at  the  Court  of  Ver 
sailles.  What  was  the  utility  of  sending  a  messenger 
hundreds  of  miles  through  the  wilderness,  in  hourly 
peril  of  life,  to  warn  subordinates  from  obeying  the 
orders  of  their  superiors,  and  carrying  out  a  well- 


THE  WASHINGTONS   OF  VIRGINIA.  25 

considered,  matured,  and  determined  national  policy, 
passes  our  comprehension.  According  to  our  mod 
ern  lights,  it  seems  a  useless  ceremonial  that  could 
lead  to  no  possible  useful  result;  but,  according  to 
the  standard  of  the  day,  the  way  of  doing  a  thing 
was  quite  as  important  as  the  doing  of  it.  The  cere 
monial  was  an  important  part  of  the  transaction. 

Adjutant  Washington  then  was  selected  by  the 
Governor  of  Virginia  for  this  delicate  and  danger 
ous  mission.  In  October,  1753,  he  assembled  a  small 
party  at  the  mouth  of  Wills  Creek,  on  the  Potomac, 
and  pushed  out  toward  the  Ohio  with  Christopher 
Gist,  an  experienced  woodsman  and  Indian  fighter, 
as  guide.  His  place  of  departure  is  the  present  city 
of  Cumberland,  in  Maryland,  named  from  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland.  A  great  council  of  the  Ohio  In 
dians  and  the  Iroquois  had  been  called  to  meet  at 
Logstown,  an  Indian  town  on  the  Ohio  a  few  miles 
below  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  Pittsburg. 
Here  the  Virginian  envoy  met  the  chiefs  in  council, 
and,  having  induced  them  to  enter  into  amicable 
relations  with  the  English,  pushed  on  to  the  French 
post  farther  west,  near  Lake  Erie.  There  he  deliv 
ered  his  message  with  great  punctilio,  and  much 
ceremony,  and  was  bowed  out  with  courtly  grace 
and  diplomatic  phrases,  and  sent  back  with  the  po 
lite  intimation  that  if  the  Virginians  would  mind 
their  own  business  it  would  be  better  for  them. 

Winter  was  on  them  before  they  turned  home 
ward.  There  would  be  no  grass  for  the  horses,  and 
the  tracks  of  the  animals  would  mark  too  clear  a 
trail  on  the  backward  march ;  so  Gist  and  the  ma 
jor  left  their  horses,  and  took  to  the  woods  on  foot. 
Snow  and  ice  encumbered  their  march,  and  through 


26  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

perils  of  flood,  and  starvation,  and  of  Indians,  they 
successfully  pushed  their  way.  When  the  country  is 
considered — the  pathless  forest,  the  flooded  rivers, 
the  ice  on  the  mountain,  the  snow  in  the  valley — this 
journey  shows  fortitude,  perseverance,  and  prompt 
ness  extraordinary. 

Leaving  Venango,  the  French  post,  on  Christ 
mas  day,  Washington  and  his  comrade  marched  up 
the  Alleghany  to  the  confluence  of  the  Mononga- 
hela  and  the  Alleghany — the  present  Pittsburg;  then 
up  the  Monongahela  and  across  the  mountain  to 
Wills  Creek ;  thence  down  the  Potomac  to  Mount 
Vernon ;  thence  across  the  Rappahannock,  the  Pa- 
.munkey,  and  the  Mattapony,  to  Williamsburgh, 
where  they  arrived  on  January  i6th,  just  twenty-one 
days  from  the  start.  It  would  push  two  good  men, 
and  two  horses,  to  cover  the  same  ground  now  in  the 
same  time,  over  modern  roads  and  with  modern  inns. 
The  whole  expedition  was  justly  esteemed  as  an 
extraordinary  exhibition  of  courage,  sagacity,  and 
skill.  Washington  had  kept  a  careful  and  minute 
journal,  which  he  submitted  as  his  official  report  to 
the  Governor,  and  which  was  published.  It  fixed  the 
attention  of  the  province  upon  the  major  command 
ing  the  Department  of  Northern  Virginia,  and  thence 
forward  he  was  the  hope  and  pride  of  all  Virginia, 
trusted  in  trial,  and  her  stay  in  the  storm  soon  to 
burst. 


CHAPTER   II. 

FORT    NECESSITY. 

IN  recognition  of  his  service  on  the  expedition 
to  the  Ohio,  Major  Washington  was  promoted  lieu 
tenant  colonel  of  a  Virginia  regiment,  Fry  being 
colonel,  to  be  posted  at  Winchester,  at  the  foot  of 
the  great  valley  of  Virginia,  and  right  across  the 
great  trail  by  which  the  Northern  Indians  had  been 
used  from  time  immemorial  to  communicate  with 
the  great  nations  which  held  the  mountain  ranges 
and  valleys  of  the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  and  Tennes 
see.  It  was  the  highway  of  the  Iroquois  or  Six  Na 
tions  and  the  Cherokees. 

It  was  plain  to  the  Virginian  intellect — English 
and  Protestant  as  it  was — that  the  Jesuits  were 
scheming,  and  putting  forward  the  Indians  to  exter 
minate  the  settlements  of  the  Church  established  by 
Henry  VIII,  where  traditions  of  Poictiers,  and  Cressy, 
and  Agincourt  stimulated  confidence  in  themselves 
and  contempt  for  Frenchmen,  and  hatred  of  the  Pope 
and  all  his  works.  The  old  struggle  between  the  lily 
and  the  rose  was  to  be  tried  over  again,  and  no  Virgin 
ian  gentleman  doubted  his  duty,  or  the  result.  Dinwid- 
die,  the  Lieutenant  Governor,  was  a  narrow  and  big 
oted  Scotchman,  greatly  impressed  with  a  sense  of  the 
dignity  of  his  office,  and  of  the  inferiority  of  provin 
cials  to  the  home-born  British  subject.  His  Majesty's 


28  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

commission,  in  his  opinion,  conferred  a  patent  of  su 
periority  which  brought  with  it  wisdom  and  infalli 
bility.  The  wrangle  between  the  House  of  Burgesses, 
elected  by  the  gentry  of  Virginia,  and  the  Governor, 
appointed  by  a  cabinet  ignorant  of  the  environment 
or  the  development  or  of  the  feelings  of  the  provin 
cials,  of  necessity  impaired  their  efficient  support  of 
the  defense  of  Virginia.  But  the  determination  to 
protect  her  ancient  borders  from  encroachment  was 
absolutely  unalterable. 

The  tradition  of  the  spoliation  of  Virginia,  by  the 
Penn  and  Calvert  grants,  was  fresh  in  every  one's 
mind,  but  while  they  proposed  to  be  loyal  to  his 
Majesty,  and  yield  obedience  to  his  orders  in  council, 
they  would  in  no  wise  suffer  aliens  in  race  and  re 
ligion,  with  whom  their  ancestors  had  waged  war  for 
twenty  generations,  to  extend  their  hold  on  the  Con 
tinent,  or  to  trespass  on  the  ancient  borders  of  the 
Old  Dominion.  Therefore  this  regiment,  under  Fry 
and  Washington,  was  posted  on  outposts  to  break 
communication  between  the  North  and  South,  and  to 
keep  watch  over  the  movements  of  the  hereditary 
enemy  on  the  Ohio. 

The  mouth  of  Wills  Creek,  on  the  Potomac,  in 
Maryland,  was  the  head  of  flatboat  and  canoe  navi 
gation,  and  the  nearest  point  to  the  French  posts. 
It  was  selected  as  a  depot  by  Governor  Sharpe, 
of  Maryland,  where  he  collected  some  stores,  and 
whence  was  sent  out  by  the  combined  authority  of 
the  Governors  of  Maryland  and  Virginia  an  expe 
dition  to  seize  the  point  at  the  confluence  of  the 
Alleghany  and  the  Monongahela,  where  their  union 
makes  the  Ohio — a  position  Major  Washington  had 
selected  and  reported  as  the  proper  place  for  an 


FORT    NECESSITY. 


29 


advanced  post  against  the  French  on  the  lakes. 
Captain  Trent  was  pushed  out  to  establish  a  post  at 
the  confluence  of  the  two  rivers.  With  the  usual 
alertness  of  incompetency,  Captain  Trent  differed 
from  the  judgment  of  Major  Washington,  and  de 
cided  that  a  point  below  the  junction  was  the  best 
place  for  a  fort,  and  set  his  men  to  work  there  with 
spade  and  pickaxe,  and,  mounting  his  horse,  pushed 
back  to  the  post  at  Wills  Creek. 

It  was  hard  living  and  hard  sleeping  on  the  Ohio. 
Mere  dying  had  no  particular  interest  for  the  pio 
neer  race  ;  that  all  came  in  the  way  of  business, 
and  no  one  took  any  special  pains  to  avoid  it.  It 
was  like  a  mountain  road — you  might  get  through, 
and  you  might  not;  you  tried  it  all  the  same. 

The  appearance  of  the  Virginians,  their  digging 
of  dirt,  their  cutting  down  of  trees,  their  sharpen 
ing  of  stakes,  all  flew  through  the  forest,  in  the 
spring  breeze,  and  Captain  Contrecceur,  a  bright 
young  Frenchman,  at  the  nearest  post,  took  upon 
himself  to  investigate  them  and  to  verify  them. 

So  down  the  Alleghany  he  started  with  a  thou 
sand  Frenchmen  and  Indians,  in  bateaux  and  ca 
noes,  and  incontinently  stopped  the  intrenching 
operations  of  the  Virginians.  Captain  Trent  was 
away.  Lieutenant  Frazier,  his  second  in  command, 
was  at  his  home,  ten  miles  distant — a  matter  entirely 
within  his  right,  for  he  had  entered  the  service  and 
assumed  the  responsibility  of  command  at  the  fort 
on  the  express  understanding  that  he  was  to  be  per 
mitted  to  remain  at  his  own  home,  and  only  visit  the 
fort  weekly,  or  as  often  as  he  thought  necessary. 
The  Frenchman  marched  the  Virginians  out  of  the 
work  with  scant  ceremony,  and  permitted  them  to 


30  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

depart  with  their  intrenching  tools,  on  their  promise 
not  to  come  near  the  Ohio  again  for  a  year. 

On  the  2d  of  April  Colonel  Washington  set  out 
from  Alexandria,  with  two  companies  of  the  new 
regiment,  for  the  outpost  on  the  Ohio.  His  supplies 
and  baggage  were  pushed  and  hauled  up  the  Potomac 
to  the  mouth  of  Wills  Creek  in  bateaux  and  canoes. 
His  whole  force  consisted  of  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  men ;  but  on  arriving  at  Wills  Creek,  where 
Captain  Trent  was  to  have  collected  pack  horses  for 
him,  he  found  Trent  a  fugitive — no  pack  horses,  and 
no  outpost  on  the  Ohio.  He  decided  to  move  out 
as  far  as  possible  and  occupy  the  best  position  prac 
ticable,  and  therefore  pushed  into  the  wilderness  be 
yond  Cumberland,  or  Wills  Creek,  through  the  moun 
tain  defiles,  over  the  mountain  ranges,  and  through 
the  forest  with  about  three  hundred  men.  Progress 
was  necessarily  slow,  where  a  way  for  wheels  had  to 
be  cut  along  the  mountain  side  and  a  road  cleared 
through  the  heavy  timber. 

In  ten  days  they  had  not  advanced  more  than 
twenty  miles,  to  the  Little  Meadows.  Notwithstand 
ing  the  difficulties  of  the  countrj^  he  marched  forty 
or  fifty  miles  farther  north,  to  the  falls  of  the  You- 
ghiogheny.  There  he  heard  that  the  French  were 
coming,  and  had  crossed  the  ford  of  the  river  eight 
een  miles  off.  He  had  only  three  hundred  men, 
Virginian  frontiersmen,  and  fighting  men  to  be  sure, 
but  it  was  utter  recklessness  that  pushed  such  a 
force  out  in  the  wilderness  nearly  a  hundred  miles 
from  re-enforcement  or  support.  Three  hundred  Vir 
ginians  could  march  and  fight  their  way  from  Win 
chester  or  Staunton  to  Lake  Erie  or  Lake  Michigan 
against  Indians  only,  but  nothing  but  the  self-confi- 


FORT   NECESSITY.  3! 

dence  of  Englishmen  could  explain  why  an  inexperi 
enced  young  soldier  would  undertake  to  penetrate  a 
wilderness  with  a  mere  handful  of  men,  in  the  face  of 
the  unknown  force  of  Frenchmen,  then  the  first  sol 
diers  of  the  age. 

When,  however,  he  learned  that  eight  hundred 
French  were  marching  on  him,  and  only  eighteen 
miles  off,  he  promptly  selected  a  position  for  a  fight. 
At  the  Great  Meadows  he  started  to  construct  a  fort. 
The  locality  was  bad ;  it  was  too  far  out  from  his 
supports.  The  topography  was  worse.  General 
Sharpe,  of  Maryland,  a  soldier  of  experience,  of 
courage,  and  sense,  criticised  the  whole  performance 
with  remorseless  severity.  "  Fort  Necessity,"  says 
Sharpe,  "  was  a  little,  useless  intrenchment  in  a  val 
ley  between  two  eminences."  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
meadow  of  no  great  area,  surrounded  by  low  hills 
covered  with  heavy  timber.  While  he  was  at  work 
at  his  "fort  "  news  came  that  a  hostile  party  was  in 
his  neighborhood,  and  his  Indian  ally — the  Half  King 
of  the  Senecas — wanted  his  assistance  to  atack  it. 

Washington  started  at  once,  with  forty  men,  to 
find  the  enemy,  surprised  him  in  camp,  and  killed  and 
captured  Jumonville  and  the  entire  party  save  one, 
who  escaped.  This  was  Colonel  Washington's  first 
experience  of  the  singing  of  a  hostile  bullet,  and, 
being  a  healthy,  strong  young  Virginian,  it  is  reason 
able  to  believe  that  he  enjoyed  it.  His  ancestors  in 
Virginia  for  three  generations  had  been  fighting  In 
dians,  as  in  England  for  ten  they  had  been  fighting 
Frenchmen,  and  this  combined  operation  of  killing 
both  Frenchmen  and  Indians  must  have  been  a  rea 
sonable,  commendable,  and  agreeable  performance 
of  duty  and  pleasure. 


32  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Contrecceur,  with  his  French  troops,  pushed  rap 
idly  on  him,  to  avenge  the  insult  in  the  capture  of 
his  advance  party,  and  the  death  of  Jumonville,  its 
commanding  officer.  He  closed  the  Virginians  up  in 
Fort  Necessity  and  took  possession  of  the  wooded 
heights  surrounding  it.  Some  nonsense  has  been 
written  about  Colonel  Washington's  gallantry  in  of 
fering  battle  to  his  adversary  outside  of  his  trenches. 
Now,  Washington,  though  reckless  and  overconfi 
dent  in  this  first  experience,  has  never  been  suspected 
of  an  utter  lack  of  sense.  In  war  it  is  business  to 
kill  as  many  of  the  other  side  as  you  can  and  have 
as  few  of  your  own  people  killed  as  possible;  so 
you  use  every  advantage  to  save  your  men  and  to  de 
stroy  the  others;  and  the  idea  of  abandoning  shel 
ter,  and  offering  with  three  hundred  men  to  fight 
eight  hundred  "in  the  open,"  never  did  occur  to 
any  one  but  an  idiot  or  a  lunatic.  Therefore  Wash 
ington  must  be  acquitted  of  the  charge  of  offer 
ing  to  fight  the  French  "  in  the  open "  at  Fort 
Necessity. 

The  truth  is,  he  and  his  Virginians  stuck  to  their 
earthworks,  and  their  ditch,  and  their  stockade,  as 
closely  as  bark  to  the  trees;  but  the  Frenchmen  sur 
rounded  them,  sheltered  themselves  behind  trees,  and 
fired  over  the  walls  of  Fort  Necessity  into  the  un 
covered  troops  there,  with  perfect  security  and  com 
fort  to  themselves.  This  continued  the  whole  day, 
in  a  drizzling  rain.  The  Virginian  loss  was  severe. 
Twelve  had  been  killed  and  forty-three  wounded ;  so 
when  the  French  drums  beat  a  parley  at  dark,  the 
Virginian  colonel  was  glad  to  treat  for  terms.  His 
position  was  utterly  untenable,  and  it  was  only  a 
question  of  time  when  his  entire  force  would  be  shot 


FORT   NECESSITY  33 

down,  and  it  was  his  duty  to  save  his  men  for  future 
use  of  the  State. 

No  one  among  the  Virginians  could  speak  or 
read  French.  Old  Jacob  Van  Braam,  the  Dutchman 
who  had  been  pretending  to  teach  Washington  fenc 
ing  and  the  sword  exercise  at  Mount  Vernon,  had 
been  commissioned  major,  and  was  present  with  the 
command.  He  was  sent  out  to  see  the  Frenchmen, 
and  returned  with  several  offers  of  terms,  all  of 
which  were  rejected  by  Colonel  Washington.  At 
last,  late  at  night,  Major  Van  Braam  brought  in 
terms  of  capitulation  written  in  French.  He  trans 
lated  them  to  the  council  of  Virginian  officers.  Ac 
cording  to  his  translation,  they  agreed  to  honorable 
terms  of  surrender;  the  defeated  party  should  march 
out  of  their  fort  with  drums  beating  and  colors  fly 
ing,  should  salute  their  flag,  and  carry  off  all  their 
arms,  military  stores,  and  effects,  except  artillery, 
which  they  were  to  destroy.  They  pledged  them 
selves  not  to  erect  buildings  or  to  occupy  land,  or 
to  approach  near  the  Ohio  for  twelve  months. 

But  the  articles  of  capitulation  also  referred  to 
the  assassination  of  De  Jumonville,  and  Washington 
was  thus  made  to  admit  that  he  had  murdered  a 
French  officer.  This  phrase  Van  Braam  translated 
as  "the  death  of  De  Jumonville,"  and  thus  its  sig 
nificance  and  intention  escaped  the  Virginians.  The 
terms  of  capitulation  gave  great  offense  in  some  of 
the  colonies,  and  were  sharply  criticised  at  home. 

Governor  Sharpe  wrote  that  "everybody  was 
talking  of  the  unmilitary  conduct  of  Colonel  Wash 
ington,"  and  Horace  Walpole  said  that  the  French 
had  clipped  the  wings  of  that  gay  "  fanfaron," 
Major  Washington  ;  but  the  Virginians  had  a  truer 


34 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


appreciation  of  youthful  dash  and  imprudence,  and 
through  their  House  of  Burgesses  gave  a  vote  of 
thanks  to  the  officers,  and  a  donation  in  money  to 
the  men,  for  their  fidelity  and  gallantry  in  defense  of 
their  country. 

This  first  campaign  of  Washington  is  a  curious 
incident  in  his  career,  and  gives  an  interesting  in 
sight  into  his  character.  A  genuine  soldier  does  not 
give  great  consideration  to  arithmetic.  If  generals 
never  fought  until  success  was  demonstrably  certain, 
there  would  be  no  pitched  battles;  but  in  the  real 
soldier  so  much  of  imagination  mingles  with  analysis 
and  logic,  and  chance  so  often  determines  the  event, 
that  he  is  always  ready  to  take  desperate  chances. 
Since  the  capitulation  of  Fort  Necessity,  the  advance 
into  the  wilderness  with  so  small  a  force  has  been 
considered  the  next  thing  to  foolhardiness ;  yet 
Andrew  Lewis  afterward,  with  a  few  Virginians, 
fought  more  Indians  with  success  than  the  French 
force  that  captured  Fort  Necessity ;  and  George 
Rogers  Clarke  broke  the  Indian  power  and  occupied 
the  Northwest  for  Virginia  with  no  greater  force. 

If  Colonel  Washington  had  surprised  and  routed 
Contrecceur'  at  Fort  Du  Quesne — as  was  entirely 
possible — his  expedition  would  have  been  considered 
a  dashing  exploit,  whose  vigor  and  celerity  would 
have  redeemed  its  risk.  Success  is  the  only  test  of 
merit  in  military  matters. 


CHAPTER   III. 

ERADDOCK. 

THE  treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle,  while  it  settled  all 
continental  questions  between  France  and  England, 
left  the  great  dispute  between  Catholicism  and  Prot 
estantism  on  the  new  continent  absolutely  unad 
justed.  James  I  had  granted  to  Sir  William  Alexan 
der,  his  Scotch-English  Secretary  of  State — created 
Lord  Stirling — the  great  territory  of  Nova  Scotia 
(New  Scotland)  lying  on  the  north  of  the  New  Eng 
land  grant,  together  with  the  river  St.  Lawrence  and 
a  broad  strip  of  territory  along  both  sides  of  that 
river,  and  the  north  border  of  the  Great  Lakes,  to 
the  western  extremity  of  Lake  Superior,  and  thence 
in  a  wide  belt  across  the  continent  to  the  Pacific. 
Lord  Stirling  had  sold  many  baronetcies,  with  large 
estates  appurtenant  to  the  titles,  in  Nova  Scotia,  to 
raise  funds  to  develop  his  great  possessions.  Eng 
lish  gentlemen  were  settled  in  Nova  Scotia  and  New 
Brunswick,  and  were  building  up  in  the  wilderness 
a  vigorous,  robust  British  Protestant  society.  The 
French  hemmed  them  in,  the  Jesuits  surrounded 
them,  and  they  incessantly  demanded  protection 
from  home. 

The    French    claimed    the   continent    from    the 
mouth  of  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the  head  of  the  Mis 
sissippi  and  thence  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  from 
4 


36  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  source  of  the  Ohio  to  the  western  ocean.  The 
English  held  the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  the  St.  Croix 
to  the  Savannah ;  south  of  that  the  feared  and  hated 
Catholics  had  seized  the  country.  It  is  difficult  now 
to  appreciate  or  sympathize  with  the  terror,  the 
horror,  and  the  hatred  with  which  the  English  nation 
regarded  the  Pope,  and  all  his  works  and  all  his 
people. 

In  this  generation  we  are  accustomed  to  consider 
all  such  questions  as  matters  of  conscience,  and,  in 
the  general  latitudinarianism,  look  upon  physical 
struggles  over  matters  of  faith  as  proofs  of  narrow 
bigotry  and  contracted  zeal.  But  it  was  not  so,  in 
fact,  then.  England  was  the  defender  of  the  faith 
of  the  rights  of  man,  of  free  thought,  of  free  con 
tract,  of  free  labor,  and  of  free  commerce.  The 
Pope  was  the  incarnation  of  the  philosophy  of  pater 
nalism  in  faith,  in  morals,  in  conduct,  and  in  trade. 
He  had  never  obtained  absolute  control  of  the  race 
of  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  men  in  the  British  Isles. 

From  the  day  St.  Augustine  landed  in  Britain,  the 
native  race  had  stood  firm  on  their  principle  that  "the 
laws  of  England  shall  not  be  changed  except  by  our 
own  consent."  We  make  our  own  laws,  we  execute 
them,  and  we  receive  no  regulations  for  our  lives,  our 
property,  or  our  morals  from  any  foreign  prince  or 
power,  pope  or  potentate.  This  was  the  spirit  that 
had  resisted  the  pretensions  of  the  Roman  oligarchy, 
from  Alfred's  time,  to  make  laws  for  England  in  the 
convocations  of  the  clergy ;  this  the  spirit  that,  di 
rected  by  Henry  VIII,  had  established  a  Free  Church 
of  England — free  from  the  direction  or  domination 
of  the  Church  of  Rome.  The  fathers  of  the  settlers 
of  Virginia,  of  New  England,  and  of  New  Scotland 


BRADDOCK. 


37 


had  fought  the  Armada.  Some  of  the  original 
colonists  had  actually  served  under  Lord  Howard 
of  Effingham  against  Medina-Sidonia  and  Guise  in 
the  struggle  between  the  yeomanry  of  England  and 
the  chivalry  of  Spain ;  and  when  Englishmen  were 
pressed  and  hemmed  in  by  the  Pope  and  his  follow 
ers,  in  the  new  homes  they  had  carved  for  themselves 
with  their  swords  on  the  new  continent,  the  old 
Berserker  blood  fired,  and  the  word  was  passed  that 
no  Frenchman,  Spaniard,  or  Papist  should  interfere 
with  the  rights  of  Englishmen. 

But  the  provincials,  with  a  clear  view  of  what  were 
their  rights,  had  an  equally  distinct  conception  of 
the  duties  of  other  people.  It  was  their  duty  to  drive 
out  the  French ;  it  was  equally  their  right  not  to  be 
made  cat's-paws,  but  to  require  proper  support  to  be 
given  them  from  home;  for  it  was  the  old  home 
quarrel  and  the  ancient  British  battle  they  were  to 
renew  on  the  Ohio. 

The  home  government  insisted  that  New  York, 
Virginia,  and  the  colonies  should  supply  men,  money, 
and  subsistence  for  the  war  on  France.  The  colo 
nies  as  firmly  required  that  British  men  and  British 
money  should  support  the  British  quarrel,  while  they 
furnished  their  fair  share  of  the  means.  They  were 
entirely  willing  to  do  most  of  the  fighting,  as  they  in 
fact  did. 

Just  here  came  in  another  influence  of  potent 
force.  It  seems  that  all  masterful  races  send  out 
colonies,  to  subdue  and  conquer.  It  follows,  as  of 
necessity,  that  the  sons  look  to  their  father  for  as 
sistance  and  advice;  and  reverence  for  superior 
wisdom  is  added  to  love  of  home  and  of  parents. 
Therefore  the  provincial  always  occupies  a  position 


38  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

of  inferiority  to  home  people;  and  it  is  the  peculiar 
trait  of  the  British  that  they  are  utterly  unable  to 
comprehend  that  youth  ever  arrives  at  maturity ; 
that  colonies  can  develop  into  independent  societies, 
capable  of  thinking  and  acting  for  themselves. 

Acting  on  this  general  theory  of  the  unapproach 
able  superiority  of  the  native-born  and  home-staying 
Briton,  the  connection  between  the  royal  military 
organization  and  the  colonial  establishments  was 
firmly  founded  on  the  theory,  principle,  and  prac 
tice  that  the  provincial  must  be  inferior  to  the  home- 
born,  and  that  a  royal  commission  of  any  grade,  from 
the  very  nature  of  things,  must  supersede  and  over 
top  any  commission  from  a  provincial  governor  ;  that 
an  ensign,  fresh  from  school,  outranked  a  Virginia 
colonel  of  many  campaigns. 

Lieutenant-Governor  Dinwiddie,  acting  on  this 
theory,  organized  the  new  military  establishment  of 
Virginia  into  ten  companies  of  a  hundred  men  each, 
and  offered  the  command  of  one  of  them  to  Colonel 
Washington.  The  result  of  this  organization  would 
have  been  that  any  understrapper  from  home,  scion 
of  the  bastard  of  a  duke's  mistress,  would  have  com 
manded  the  experienced  soldiers  Virginia  had  already 
produced  and  trained  for  her  defense.  Washington — 
with  the  rank  of  colonel,  which  he  had  won  by  ardu 
ous  service,  and  decorated  with  the  thanks  of  Vir 
ginia,  though  her  representatives — promptly  resigned 
his  commission  and  retired  to  Mount  Vernon. 

The  administration  at  home  prepared  a  campaign 
for  America  which  would  relieve  them  from  pressure 
on  the  continent.  They  proposed  an  attack  on  Nova 
Scotia,  directed  from  New  York,  and  one  on  the  Ohio, 
moving  from  Virginia.  Governor  Horatio  Sharpe, 


BRADDOCK.  39 

of  Maryland,  was  commissioned  major  general,  to 
command  all  the  provincial  troops  raised,  and  to  be 
raised,  for  the  war  against  the  French  on  the  Ohio. 
Major-General  Edward  Braddock,  an  experienced 
soldier  in  the  wars  in  the  Low  Countries,  was  sent 
out  with  two  regiments  of  regulars,  and  the  proper 
train  of  artillery  to  support  it.  He  established  head 
quarters  at  Alexandria,  on  the  Potomac.  There,  on 
April  14,  1755,  he  called  a  council  of  war,  which  was 
presided  over  by  himself,  and  attended  by  Admiral 
Keppel,  commander  in  chief  of  the  navy  in  Ameri 
ca,  and  the  Governors  of  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia.  Major-Gen 
eral  William  Shirley,  Governor  of  Massachusetts, 
had  been  designated  by  the  home  authorities  to  rank 
next  to  General  Braddock,  and  to  command  the 
forces  to  be  directed  against  Nova  Scotia.  Major- 
General  Horatio  Sharpe,  Governor  of  Maryland,  was 
to  command  all  the  provincial  troops  under  General 
Braddock. 

It  was  determined  that  Wills  Creek,  at  its  junc 
tion  with  the  Potomac,  should  be  the  base  of  oper 
ations.  Suppliers  could  be  boated  there  from  Alex 
andria,  and  collected  from  the  rich  valley  of  Virginia 
and  the  fertile  lands  of  western  Maryland,  just  then 
being  occupied  by  emigrants  from  Alsace-Lorraine, 
who  had  made  homes  in  the  wilderness,  fugitives  of 
Protestantism  from  the  Catholic  King  of  France. 

Governor  Sharpe  promptly  prepared  proper  sup 
port  for  the  movement.  He  secured  from  the  Gen 
eral  Assembly  of  Maryland  sufficient  supplies  of 
money  to  construct  on  the  Potomac  a  substantial 
bastioned  work  which  he  called  Fort  Frederick,  and 
his  flatboats  and  canoes  pushed  up  the  Potomac, 


40  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

which  sometimes  presents  rapids  difficult  to  surmount 
and  then  for  many  miles  flows  in  a  deep  and  sluggish 
stream  through  mountain  passes  and  primeval  forest. 
The  Maryland  part  of  the  arrangement  was  thoroughly 
carried  out. 

Colonel  Washington  of  necessity  was  drawn  from 
Mount  Vernon  to  the  gay  life  of  a  garrison  town. 
He  was  a  soldier  of  some  experience  ;  he  had  led  in 
person  a  surprise  party  on  an  all-night  march,  and 
had  held  an  indefensible  position  to  the  verge  of 
rashness  against  an  overwhelming  force,  and  he  had 
seen  some  soldiers  among  the  French ;  but  he  never 
before  had  seen  "real  soldiers" — British  soldiers, 
whose  invincibility  for  a  thousand  years  was  as  well 
established  a  fact  as  sunlight  to  the  loyal  mind,  who 
on  every  field  had  proved  their  superiority  to  French 
men.  He  had  commanded  frontiersmen,  the  lean, 
gaunt,  sinewy,  bony  Virginian  of  the  woods  and  the 
mountains,  who  knew  as  little  of  the  manual  of  arms 
as  he  did  of  fighting  by  word  of  command,  and  it  can 
well  be  imagined  with  what  interest  the  bush-fight 
ing  Virginian  colonel  inspected,  observed,  and  pon 
dered  the  operations  of  that  intricate  machine,  a  regu 
lar  army. 

The  form  and  ceremony  must  have  been  a  reve 
lation.  The  dress  parade,  the  guard  mounting,  all 
the  minutiae  of  camp  life,  presented  to  him  many 
problems.  What  was  the  reason  of  those  ponderous 
movements  by  which  a  column  was  displayed  into  a 
line,  and  a  front  of  a  few  was  spread  out  into  a  line 
of  many  ?  To  the  untutored  Virginian  there  must 
have  appeared  a  great  loss  of  time  and  prodigious 
increase  of  risk,  and  a  consequent  useless  expenditure 
of  life;  and  during  that  short  time  of  observation, 


BRADDOCK.  4 1 

and  criticism  of  soldiers  in  camp  and  of  officers  at 
mess,  curious  comparisons  must  have  been  made  by 
the  provincial,  and  grave  doubts  arisen  as  to  whether 
such  a  machine  would  work  in  the  woods. 

The  rank  and  dignity  and  state  of  the  commander 
in  chief  required  that  he  should  be  conveyed  in  a 
coach-and-six.  Colonel  Washington  made  no  specu 
lation  about  that,  for  he  knew  that  that  would  cure 
itself.  If  the  coach  ever  got  as  far  as  Fort  Cumber 
land,  he  was  sure  that  its  wheels  would  never  go 
farther  except  as  wheels  of  ammunition  tumbrels, 
or  provision  carts. 

Colonel  Washington  was  a  gentleman  of  distinc 
tion  in  the  neighborhood.  He  had  the  handsomest 
estate  next  to  Lord  Fairfax  in  the  Dominion.  He 
was  a  man  of  the  world,  had  been  to  the  West  Indies, 
and  thanked  by  the  General  Assembly  of  his  colony 
for  gallantry  in  action,  and  was  withal  a  gentleman  of 
force  and  experience  beyond  his  years.  Commanding 
generals  like  smart,  active,  brave,  useful  young  men 
about  them,  and  they  are  glad  to  attach  them  to 
their  service  when  they  can  do  so  as  volunteers, 
without  rank  or  pay,  where  gallant  conduct  in  action 
often  wins  promotion  and  fame.  It  would  have  been 
remarkable  if  General  Braddock  had  not  invited 
Colonel  Washington  to  accept  the  position  of  volun 
teer  aid-de-camp  on  his  staff.  He  did  so,  tendering 
him  the  rank  of  captain  by  brevet,  the  highest  rank 
he  was  authorized  to  confer  on  a  volunteer  aid. 
Captain  Washington  at  once  accepted  the  honor,  and 
was  the  most  valuable  man  on  the  staff. 

He  knew  the  country  and  the  people  between 
Alexandria  and  Fort  Cumberland  ;  he  had  ridden  or 
marched  over  every  foot  of  it.  He  knew  the  fords 


42  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

on  the  Shenandoah  and  the  crossings  of  the  Potomac, 
the  trails  through  the  woods  as  far  west  as  the 
Monongahela  and  to  the  Ohio,  and  he  knew  what 
could  be  done  and  what  could  not  be  done  in  that 
country.  He  knew  that  a  rapid  march  from  Cum 
berland,  of  a  column  of  a  thousand  men  in  light 
marching  order,  carrying  ten  days'  rations  and  their 
ammunition  in  packs  on  their  backs,  each  man  for 
himself,  might  get  through  the  woods  so  fast  as  to 
strike  Du  Quesne  before  re-enforcements  could  be 
hurried  to  it  from  Lake  Erie  ;  and  he  also  knew  that 
no  troops  whose  march  was  regulated  by  a  six-horsed 
coach  could  do  any  efficient  work. 

In  the  woods,  fighting  is  done  quite  as  much  with 
the  legs  as  by  the  arms,  and  no  soldier  can,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  accomplish  much  who  is  tied  and 
shackled-  hand  and  foot  by  a  cumbrous  uniform. 
The  shako  of  the  British  grenadier  will  of  itself 
break  down  the  best  line  of  battle  of  its  wearers, 
lose  a  position,  end  a  war,  and  settle  a  boundary. 

Sir  John  St.  Clair,  Deputy  Quartermaster  General, 
had  come  out  to  assist  in  the  campaign,  which  was  to 
save  a  ministry  and  settle  the  dynasty  on  the  throne 
of  Great  Britain.  Fort  Cumberland  was  selected 
as  the  base  of  military  operations  against  western 
Canada,  and  Governor  Sharpe  had  collected  maga 
zines  of  provisions  and  munition  there.  He  had 
drawn  to  him  many  hardy  and  enterprising  pioneers, 
who  made  contracts  to  supply  beef  on  the  hoof,  and 
wagons  and  horses.  Sir  John  St.  Clair  required  the 
Governor  of  Pennsylvania  to  construct  a  road  from 
Philadelphia  to  Fort  Cumberland,  and  from  Fort 
Cumberland  west  to  the  great  crossing  of  the 
Youghiogheny. 


BRADDOCK. 


43 


Braddock,  upon  the  rising  of  the  council  of  war, 
moved  his  force  from  Alexandria  up  the  south  bank 
of  the  Potomac,  above  the  mouth  of  Rock  Creek, 
where  he  crossed  into  Maryland  with  the  Forty- 
eighth  Regiment,  Colonel  Dunbar,  the  Forty-fourth 
Regiment  moving  on  to  Winchester.  He  camped 
for  six  days  at  the  new  palatine  settlement  of  Fred 
erick,  and  became  very  indignant  at  the  neglect  of 
the  Pennsylvanians  to  construct  the  road  and  to  sup 
ply  the  two  hundred  wagons  demanded  by  Sir  John 
St.  Clair  as  necessary  for  the  transportation  of  the 
expedition.  He  proposed  to  send  out  into  the 
country,  and  impress  wagons  and  teams  under  the 
direction  of  the  quartermaster  general.  Captain 
Washington,  and  Benjamin  Franklin,  postmaster 
general  of  the  colonies,  defended  their  countrymen, 
and  excused  the  lack  of  provision  made  for  the 
army.  But  Franklin,  with  that  shrewd  insight  into 
common  human  nature  which  was  to  make  him  the 
philosopher  of  the  commonplace,  at  once  discerned 
the  opportunity  to  make  influence  for  himself  and 
money  for  his  people.  He  noticed  that  Sir  John  St. 
Clair  wore  a  Hussar  uniform.  The  German  settlers 
of  Pennsylvania,  by  experience  and  by  tradition, 
well  knew  the  atrocities  of  the  Hussars  in  Germany 
and  the  Low  Countries,  in  the  wars,  from  which  they 
had  fled,  and  from  which  their  ancestors  had  suf 
fered  for  generations. 

"Hussar"  was  a  name  of  terror  to  them — the 
embodiment  of  war,  of  rapine,  of  fire  and  sword, 
of  famine  and  death.  So,  from  Frederick,  Franklin 
wrote  and  published  a  letter  to  the  inhabitants  of 
the  counties  of  Lancaster,  York,  and  Cumberland,  in 
which  he  informed  them  that  the  British  officers 


44  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

"  proposed  to  send  an  armed  force  immediately  into 
their  counties,  to  seize  as  many  of  the  best  car 
riages  and  horses  as  should  be  wanted,  and  compel 
as  many  persons  into  the  service  as  should  be  neces 
sary  to  drive  and  take  care  of  them." 

He  showed  that  if  they  furnished  teams  and  wag 
ons  and  drivers  voluntarily  they  would  receive  in 
wages  fully  ,£30,000  in  gold  and  silver  of  the  King's 
money.  "  If  you  do  not  come  forward  and  do  your 
duty,"  said  he,  "I  shall  be  obliged  to  inform  the  gen 
eral  in  fourteen  days,  and  I  suppose  Sir  John  St. 
Clair,  'the  Hussar,'  with  a  body  of  soldiers,  will  im 
mediately  enter  the  province,  which  I  shall  be  sorry 
to  hear  of."  The  glittering  suggestion  of  £30,000  in 
gold  and  silver  acted  in  an  agreeable  and  persuasive 
manner  on  the  bucolic  mind;  but  the  touch  of  Na 
ture,  the  sly  insinuation  about  "the  Hussar,"  was 
convincing.  The  roads  were  crowded  with  four- 
horse  teams,  to  earn  the  pay,  and  to  escape  "the 
Hussar,"  all  of  which  reported  at  Fort  Cumberland 
about  the  last  of  June. 

On  April  3oth  Braddock  left  Frederick  in  the  char 
iot  he  had  purchased  from  Governor  Sharpe ;  and, 
escorted  by  his  bodyguard,  a  troop  of  Virginia  Light 
Horse — the  only  cavalry  in  his  command — passed 
over  the  mountain  north  of  Frederick,  across  Middle- 
town  Valley,  through  a  gap  in  South  Mountain,  which 
still  bears  his  name  (over  what,  in  subsequent  years, 
became  the  battlefield  of  Antietam),  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Conococheague,  where  he  crossed  the  Poto 
mac.  The  town  of  Williamsport  is  now  at  the  ford 
where  he  crossed,  and  Williamsport  long  afterward 
became  one  of  the  principal  competitors  for  the  site 
of  the  federal  city.  In  the  order  of  the  day  of  April 


BRADDOCK.  45 

27th  the  route  is  published,  providing  for  the  march 
to  Wills  Creek,  a  total  of  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
nine  miles  to  be  made  by  May  pth. 

The  Forty-eighth,  Colonel  Dunbar,  moved  out 
on  the  29th  and  made  the  route  as  by  orders  direct 
ed,  first  across  Middletown  Valley,  then  to  Conoco- 
cheague  ;  there  it  crossed  the  Potomac,  thence  up  the 
south  bank  of  the  Potomac  by  the  mouth  of  Little 
Cacapon  to  Old  Town,  where  it  recrossed  to  the 
north  bank,  and  thence  to  Fort  Cumberland,  where 
it  reported  May  pth,  according  to  the  route  and 
time  set  out  in  orders. 

A  few  miles  below  Wills  Creek  the  command  was 
halted,  and  brought  to  a  present,  as  the  commander 
in  chief  whirled  by  in  his  coach-and-six.  The  drums 
beat  the  Grenadier's  March,  the  colors  drooped, 
and  all  "the  pomp  and  pride  and  circumstance  of 
glorious  war  "  was  displayed.  At  the  fort  this  gor 
geous  apparition  was  saluted  with  seventeen  guns — 
the  number  appropriate  to  the  commander  of  an 
army  in  the  field.  In  the  afternoon  the  whole  com 
mand  was  assembled,  the  Forty-fourth,  Sir  Peter 
Halkett,  having  arrived  from  Winchester ;  and  on 
the  loth  it  was  announced  in  the  order  of  the  day 
that  "  Mr.  Washington  is  appointed  Aid-de-camp  to 
His  Excellency  General  Braddock."  On  the  i2th 
the  troops  were  brigaded,  and  the  general  order  in 
Braddock's  orderly  book,  the  original  of  which  is 
in  the  Congressional  Library  at  Washington,  gives  an 
accurate  statement  of  the  troops  present  for  duty, 
and  their  number  of  effective  men. 

The  First  Brigade,  under  the  command  of  Colo 
nel  Sir  Peter  Halkett,  consisted  of — 


46  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


MEN. 


Forty-fourth  Regiment,  Grenadier  Guards 700 

Captain   Rutherford's   and    Captain   Gates's    inde 
pendent  companies  of  New  York 95 

Captain  Poison's  company  of  Carpenters 48 

Captain    Peronnu's    and   Captain   Waggoner's   Vir 
ginia  Rangers 92 

Captain  Dagworthy's  Maryland  Rangers 49 

Total,  First  Brigade 984 

Second  Brigade,  Colonel  Dunbar : 

Forty-eighth  Regiment 650 

Captain  Demerie's  South  Carolina  detachment 97 

Captain  Dobbs's  North  Carolina  Rangers 80 

Captain  Mercer's  company  of  Carpenters 35 

Captain  Stevens's  Virginia  Rangers 48 

Captain  Hogg's  Virginia  Rangers 40 

Captain  Cox's  Virginia  Rangers  .. . -. 43 

Total,  Second  Brigade 993 

There  was  also  a  train  of  artillery  and  a  force  of 
engineers,  and  a  detachment  of  thirty  sailors  from 
the  British  fleet.  It  was  provided  with  one  hundred 
and  fifty  wagons  and  two  thousand  horses. 

The  First  Brigade  marched  on  June  8th,  and  the 
next  day  the  Second  followed,  under  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Gage,  of  the  Forty-eighth.  The  perform 
ances  of  that  march,  if  they  were  not  proved  by 
absolutely  indisputable  proof,  would  be  simply  in 
credible.  But  Braddock's  road  is  now  (March,  1894) 
perfectly  well  defined,  north  of  Cumberland.  It 
looks  as  if  intelligent  purpose  had  exerted  itself  to 
waste  time  and  labor.  It  is  located  without  the 
slightest  regard  to  grades  or  obstacles.  Instead  of 
blasting  rocks — or,  still  better,  avoiding  them  when 
ever  possible — the  engineers  seem  to  have  tried  to 


BRADDOCK.  47 

leave  monuments  to  their  own  stupidity.  Great 
bowlders  in  the  road,  instead  of  being  rolled  or 
blasted  out  of  the  way,  are  carefully  hewed  down  so 
as  to  present  no  obstruction.  The  third  camp  was 
only  five  miles  from  the  first. 

In  seven  days  they  reached  the  Little  Meadows, 
twenty  miles  from  Cumberland.  Here  a  council  of 
war  was  called  by  the  commanding  general,  and  he 
decided  to  move  out  with  a  light  column  of  twelve 
hundred  men  and  twelve  guns,  leaving  Colonel  Dun- 
bar  in  charge  of  the  reserve,  the  wagons,  and  re 
serve  artillery,  to  push  on  as  rapidly  as  possible. 
On  the  23d  of  June  the  advance  reached  the  Great 
Crossing  of  the  Youghiogheny,  thirty-seven  miles 
from  Fort  Cumberland — fifteen  days  for  thirty-seven 
miles.  On  the  8th  of  July  he  arrived  at  the  Monon- 
gahela,  fifteen  miles  below  Fort  Du  Quesne.  A  defile 
on  the  north  or  right  bank  rendered  it  necessary  to 
cross  the  river,  and  then  recross  eight  miles  farther 
down  the  stream.  During  the  day  before,  small  par 
ties  of  the  enemy  had  been  hanging  on  the  flanks 
and  picking  up  stragglers,  thus  showing  that  the 
movements  of  the  invading  force  were  known  and 
accurately  observed. 

The  passage  of  the  river  then  became  a  delicate 
and  difficult  operation.  At  3  A.  M.  of  the  9tl;r 'Lieu 
tenant-Colonel  Gage  was  sent  with  a  detachment  of 
the  Forty-eighth  Regiment  to  occupy  the  pressing 
and  cover  the  movement.  An  hour  later  Sir  John  St. 
Clair  moved  out  with  a  working  party,  to  construct 
roads,  and  make  the  fords  practicable  for  wagons 
and  artillery,  by  cutting  down  the  banks,  and  at  6 
A.  M.  the  main  body,  under  command  of  Braddock, 
took  up  the  route.  He  intended  to  take  Fort  Du 


48  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Quesne  that  day,  and  proposed  that  it  should  be 
done  according  to  the  rules  and  regulations  of  civil 
ized  war — by  troops  on  dress  parade,  with  colors 
flying,  drums  beating,  and  trumpets  sounding — and 
not  in  a  disorderly  chance  medley  of  wood  rangers 
and  hunting-shirt-clad,  moccasin-shod  hunters  and 
scouts,  who  knew  no  more  of  the  minutiae  and  ele 
gances  of  war  than  they  did  of  Almack's  or  of 
White's  celebrated  club. 

After  passing  the  first  ford  they  reached  the  sec 
ond  about  noon.  The  low  land  on  that  side  of  the 
river  was  level,  open  woodland,  of  heavy  walnut 
timber,  and  no  undergrowth,  the  ground  well  cov 
ered  with  grass.  The  enemy  were  frequently  visible 
on  the  heights  on  the  other  side,  and  Braddock,  to 
impress  them  with  the  kind  of  war  they  were  to  ex 
pect  from  him,  spent  an  hour  in  putting  his  troops 
through  battalion  movements,  in  full  sight  of  the 
French  and  Indian  scouts,  and  his  men  were  given 
their  dinners. 

A  recent  publication  of  the  memoirs  of  Charles 
de  Langlade,  the  French  officer  who  led  the  attack 
ing  party,  gives  us  a  graphic  description  from  their 
point  of  view.  When  information  of  the  approach 
of  Braddock  with  an  army  of  over  two  thousand 
men  came,  the  commander  of  Fort  Du  Quesne  was  in 
doubt  whether  to  fight,  to  surrender,  or  to  evacuate 
and  destroy  the  post.  The  first  course  was  decided 
on,  and  for  this  purpose  De  Beaujeu  was  ordered  to 
take  a  party  out  and  attack  the  enemy  before  he 
could  invest  the  fort.  He  organized  a  force  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  French  and  six  hundred  and  fifty 
Indians.  Moving  out  at  9  A.  M.  of  the  Qth,  De  Beau 
jeu  found  himself  at  the  ford  of  the  Monongahela 


BRADDOCK. 


49 


at  12.30  P.  M.,  just  as  Braddock  was  going  through 
his  battalion  drill,  and  witnessed  the  dinner  of  those 
well-trained  troops. 

On  the  north  side  of  the  Monongahela  there  was 
an  open  meadow  or  wooded  glade,  level,  and  with 
out  undergrowth,  spreading  back  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  river  ;  then  the  high  ground  usual  in  river 
formations  begins  to  ascend  until  it  rises  into  a  ridge, 
covered  with  heavy  timber,  bushes,  and  thick  under 
growth.  From  this  ridge  run  two  ravines  several 
hundred  yards  apart  down  to  the  river's  edge. 

The  column  was  put  in  motion  about  i  o'clock, 
the  guides  in  front,  then  the  engineers,  with  six  light 
horsemen  ;  then  Lieutenant-Colonel  Gage,  with  the 
Forty-eighth  Regiment ;  then  Sir  John  St.  Clair,  Quar 
termaster  General,  with  two  six-pounder  guns  and  the 
men,  wagons,  and  tools  of  the  working  party  ;  then 
General  Braddock,  with  Colonel  Sir  Peter  Halkett 
and  the  Forty-fourth  ;  then  the  artillery  and  wagons ; 
then  the  provincial  troops  for  rear  guard. 

While  the  advance  was  crossing  the  ford  and 
moving  into  the  forest  the  rear  was  cooking  rations; 
for  the  column  moved  so  slowly,  the  head  would 
some  days  go  into  camp  about  the  time  the  rear  was 
moving  out  of  the  camp  of  the  day  before.  De  Lang- 
lade  took  in  the  conditions  at  once,  and  urged  his 
superior  to  attack,  which  was  done  with  energy  and 
promptness.  The  first  known  by  the  British  was 
that  the  guides  saw  a  force  of  French  and  Indians, 
led  by  a  Frenchman,  De  Beaujeu,  gayly  uniformed 
in  hunting  shirt  and  gorget,  charging  on  them  out 
of  the  woods  in  front.  At  the  same  instant  a  fire 
broke  out  of  the  ravines  on  each  side  of  the  column. 

Captain    Washington,   the  volunteer   aid,   would 


50  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

have  committed  a  grave  breach  of  the  proprieties 
if  on  the  field  of  battle  he  had  volunteered  to  his 
chief  advice  unasked  ;  but  the  emergency  was  so 
pressing,  and  time  so  precious,  that  he  begged  his 
commanding  officer  to  let  him  bring  up  the  provin 
cials,  and  cover  the  front  and  flank  with  skirmishers, 
until  the  position  and  numbers  of  the  enemy  could 
be  developed. 

The  trained  soldier  could  not  consent  to  veterans 
being  protected  by  undrilled,  half-armed,  savagely 
clad  countrymen,  and  said  that  his  men  should  fight 
in  line  or  not  at  all.  The  provincials  had  required  no 
orders;  the  first  shot  told  the  whole  tale  to  them; 
they  were  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  in  force,  for 
half  a  dozen  Indians  alone  would  never  fire  at  such  a 
force.  Killing  was  in  order,  and  they  proposed  to  be 
killers  and  not  killees,  and  do  their  part  of  the  work. 
Without  waiting  for  word  or  order,  they  broke  and 
took  to  the  trees.  Braddock  was  loud  in  damning 
their  cowardice  ;  but  before  one  of  his  staff  could 
ride  up  to  Colonel  Gage,  the  provincials  knew  all 
about  it  and  acted  accordingly.  They  covered  the 
rear  of  the  army,  and  the  artillery  and  wagons.  The 
French  attack  spread  with  the  rapidity  of  fire  in  the 
dry  grass.  It  ran  along  both  sides  of  the  English 
column  and  closed  round  the  rear.  The  British 
stood  in  a  road  twelve  feet  wide,  falling  in  their 
tracks  without  firing  a  shot  in  reply.  Braddock  sent 
an  aid  to  the  front  to  find  out  from  Colonel  Gage 
what  was  the  matter. 

Struggling  through  a  huddled  column  in  a  packed 
road  is  slow  work  for  man  and  horse,  and  it  took 
time  to  get  forward,  and  as  much  to  get  back.  The 
fire  in  front  increased,  and  Braddock,  all  afire,  spurred 


BRADDOCK.  5 1 

forward,  assumed  command  of  the  Forty-eighth,  and 
ordered  it  to  form  by  platoons,  and  charge  the  woods 
to  the  right  and  left.  A  platoon  can  not  be  formed 
in  a  wood  road  twelve  feet  wide.  Each  flank  will 
extend  into  the  woods,  and  the  line  be  pinioned,  as 
if  its  arms  were  tied. 

In-' the  confusion  the  men  fell  by  rank.  The 
French  account  says  that  many  officers  were  killed 
with  their  dinner  napkins  pinned  to  their  breasts. 
This  one  incident  lets  in  a  clear  beam  of  light  over 
the  tragedy  of  folly  and  incompetence.  When  it  was 
once  reported  to  "  Stonewall  Jackson  "  that  his  ad 
versary  was  marching  up  the  valley  attended  by  a 
herd  of  four  thousand  beef  cattle,  his  reply  was, 
"  Good !  we  can  beat  people  who  have  to  drive  their 
rations  on  the  hoof  with  them."  And  he  did. 

So  the  Frenchman  might  have  said:  "  We  can 
beat  any  soldiers  who  require  dinner  napkins  on  the 
eve  of  battle."  Napkins  imply  cooks,  cooks  require 
cooking  utensils,  wagons,  all  the  vast  impedimenta 
of  a  luxurious  and  overfed  army,  and  prove  lack  of 
endurance.  But  they  do  not  imply  lack  of  courage. 
That  the  British  breed  has  never  shown,  and  the 
gamest,  most  gallant,  most  daring,  most  chivalrous 
class  that  ever  lived  is  the  English  gentry,  of  which 
the  officers  of  the  army  were  then  composed,  and 
their  American  kin.  On  that  field  they  proved  them 
selves  worthy  of  their  blood.  They  showed  every 
soldierly  trait  except  sense. 

Braddock  was  on  his  horse  in  front  of  the  column, 
directing  movements,  shouting,  gesticulating,  swear 
ing  at  the  stupidity  of  his  men,  who  would  not  form 
and  would  not  charge.  Said  the  men  in  the  ranks, 
"  We'll  fight  men — we  can't  fight  bushes,''  and  as  the 
5 


52  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

slaughter  increased  they  became  rattled.  The  line 
officers  tried  to  lead  squads  into  the  bushes. 

Colonel  Gage  planted  the  colors  of  the  two  regi 
ments  in  the  road,  to  form  on.  Still  the  men  fell, 
and  Braddock  stormed.  The  line  officers,  "  with  din 
ner  napkins  pinned  to  their  breasts,"  formed  squads 
of  officers  by  themselves,  and  showed  the  way  to 
death.  The  bush  fighters  in  the  rear  never  lost  their 
self-possession  for  a  moment.  They  were  at  their 
accustomed  work,  and  they  went  at  it  like  days'  la 
bor.  Many  of  them  knew  Captain  Washington  per 
sonally  and  had  served  under  him,  and  all  of  them 
knew  him  by  reputation. 

Hurrying  up  and  down  the  narrow  road,  when  the 
commanding  general  rode  to  the  front  and  took 
command  there,  his  provincial  staff  officer  naturally 
was  sent  back  to  direct  the  provincials,  and  represent 
the  general  on  that  part  of  the  field.  As  the  French 
fire  poured  in  on  his  flanks,  Washington  rushed  Cap 
tain  Waggoner's  two  Virginia  companies  by  the  right 
down  into  the  ravine,  faced  to  the  left,  and  then 
charged  straight  up  it,  driving  everything  before  him, 
and  relieved  that  flank  of  the  British  column. 

In  so  doing,  the  command  got  up  in  advance  of 
Gage's  column,  when  Braddock  was  swearing  and  the 
line  officers  dying.  As  they  passed  the  English  in 
the  road,  the  latter,  misled  by  the  hunting  shirts  and 
head  gear  of  the  Virginians,  poured  a  volley  into 
their  rear,  and  killed  and  wounded  two  thirds  of 
them.  That  ended  all  check  to  the  French,  and  the 
rest  of  it  was  merely  a  battue,  where  the  hunter  shot 
his  game  from  cover,  without  risk,  and  hardly  with 
any  excitement. 

The  English,  huddled  up,  fired  into  the  groups  in 


BRADDOCK. 


53 


front  of  them,  fired  in  the  air.  In  the  region  of  the 
battlefield,  tradition  to  this  day  alleges  that  Brad- 
dock  was  not  killed  by  Indian  or  Frenchman,  but  by 
Tom  Fossit,  a  private  in  Captain  Cholmondeley's 
company  of  the  Forty-eighth  Regiment.  Fossit  had 
been  enlisted  at  Shippensburg,  Pa.,  and  had  a  brother 
in  his  company,  who  was  killed  in  the  battle.  He 
lived  for  many  years,  and  doubtless  enjoyed  many  a 
"  treat  "  in  exchange  for  his  fable. 

His  story  was  that  Braddock  killed  his  brother 
for  dodging  behind  a  tree,  and  that  he  avenged  his 
brother  on  the  spot.  This  story  is  merely  incredible. 
Braddock  had  five  horses  killed  under  him,  and  in 
the  close  fighting  all  around  him  the  miracle  is  that 
he  lived  as  long  as  he  did.  A  mounted  officer  of  the 
striking  appearance,  with  the  conspicuous  uniform 
of  a  major  general  attracted  a  hundred  bullets  be 
fore  the  fatal  one  hit ;  and  it  is  incredible  that  a 
private  soldier  should  be  guilty  of  the  dastardly 
treason  of  killing  his  commanding  general  in  battle. 
The  military  profession  evolves  a  respect  for  rank 
as  representing  power,  that  increases  and  intensifies 
as  rank  rises  and  power  enlarges,  and  in  battle  the 
commanding  officer  is  the  god,  the  human  provi 
dence  of  the  private  soldier.  He  holds  his  life  in 
the  look  of  his  eye  or  the  crook  of  his  finger,  and 
can  order  the  private  to  instant  death  by  a  wave  of 
his  hand,  and  does  it  constantly.  Therefore  no  pri 
vate  soldier  who  ever  carried  a  musket  or  drew 
saber,  ever,  anywhere  could  or  ever  did,  in  the  heat 
of  battle,  with  death  looking  right  into  his  eyes,  con 
ceive  of  killing  the  superintending  power  which  ab 
solutely  controlled  his  destiny. 

If  Braddock   did  kill   Fossit's  brother — which  is 


54  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

quite  probable,  for  the  general  was  likely  to  do  so 
foolish  a  thing — it  is  almost  certain  that  Tom  broke 
for  the  nearest  tree,  and  kept  that  between  him  and 
the  general  until  he  had  an  opportunity  to  escape 
official  recognition.  At  last  Braddock  fell  mortally 
wounded.  That  ended  it.  Most  of  the  field  and 
line  officers  were  already  on  the  ground,  and  when 
the  general  in  front  of  or  up  with  his  first  line  fell 
over  the  neck  of  his  horse,  the  first  line  broke  and 
went  back  on  the  second,  they  two  on  the  third,  and 
the  whole  went  sweeping  down  the  road  like  a  stam 
peded  herd  of  buffalo.  There  was  no  withstanding 
the  tornado.  Washington  afterward  said  that  it  was 
as  impossible  to  stop  them  as  to  stop  "  a  gang  of  wild 
bears  from  the  mountains,  or  a  mountain  torrent." 

It  bore  everything  before  it,  and  ran  over  horses, 
wagons,  and  men  of  the  rear  guard.  Captain  Wash 
ington  held  his  provincials  with  a  cool  and  steady 
hand  until  the  torrent  rushed  by,  and  then  deployed 
them  across  the  road,  and  on  each  side  of  it,  to  check 
the  pursuit.  He  pushed  back  to  where  some  sol 
diers  were  struggling  to  carry  off  the  heavy  and 
cumbrous  body  of  their  general.  Jumping  from  his 
horse,  he  jerked  the  official  silk  sash  from  the  waist 
of  the  commanding  officer,  and  using  it  as  a  litter, 
pushed  the  carriers  behind  his  line.  He  then  dog 
gedly  gave  ground,  for  all  that  was  left  to  be  done 
was  to  gain  time  and  save  Dunbar. 

As  the  stampede  swept  by  the  wagons,  the  wag 
oners  cut  their  horses  loose  and  whipped  for  their 
lives.  After  every  great  disaster  the  most  fright 
ened  are  the  fleetest,  and  they  invariably  spread 
the  news  as  they  fly  that  "All  is  lost !  Everybody  is 
killed !  The  command  is  cut  up  !  "  So  when  the  ter- 


BRADDOCK. 


55 


rified  wagoners  flew  through  Dunbar's  camp,  not  a 
word  of  explanation  was  needed.  The  harnessed 
horses,  the  riders  belaboring  them  at  every  jump,  as 
they  sped  toward  Fort  Cumberland,  told  the  story  of 
rout  and  flight  without  words. 

Colonel  Dunbar  by  strict  discipline  held  his  com 
mand  firm.  He  was  forty  miles  in  rear.  As  soon  as 
the  remnants  of  the  army  recrossed  the  Mononga- 
hela  that  evening,  Braddock  sent  Captain  Washing 
ton  back  to  Dunbar  to  bring  up  wagons  and  pro 
visions.  The  old  soldier  was  thinking  more  of  his 
wounded  than  of  himself,  and  he  sent  back  the  best 
man  about  him  to  get  help  for  them.  His  other  aids 
were  killed  or  wounded. 

Captain  Washington  rode  back  that  night  on  one 
horse,  when  the  darkness  was  so  intense,  and  the 
road  so  obscure,  that  he  passed  much  of  his  time 
leading  his  horse  and  kneeling  on  the  ground  feel 
ing  for  the  road.  Notwithstanding  this,  he  and  his 
two  orderlies  reached  Dunbar's  camp  at  sunrise,  and 
immediately  returned  with  supplies  and  re-enforce 
ments  to  the  army.  He  met  it  at  Gist's  plantation, 
and,  returning,  reached  Dunbar's  camp  that  night, 
where  they  halted  for  two  nights  and  a  day. 

Then  continuing  the  retreat  on  the  i3th,  they 
reached  the  Great  Meadows,  where  Braddock  died 
and  was  buried  before  day  next  morning  in  the  mid 
dle  of  the  road,  Captain  Washington  reading  the  serv 
ice  of  the  Church  over  him.  The  wagon  train  was 
driven  over  the  grave  to  save  it  from  the  Indians. 
From  Little  Meadows  Washington  wrote  to  Colonel 
Inness,  at  Fort  Cumberland,  asking  for  aid,  which  that 
officer  promptly  dispatched  to  him.  The  melancholy 
party  arrived  at  the  fort  on  the  i6th  and  iyth. 


56  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Dunbar  arrived  there  on  the  2oth,  and  was  obliged 
to  stop  until  August  26.  to  take  care  of  the  wounded. 
On  that  day,  with  his  entire  command,  consisting  of 
the  survivors  of  the  Forty-fourth  and  Forty-eighth 
Regiments  and  of  the  Virginia  battalion,  and  of  the 
independent  companies,  numbering  in  all  about  fifteen 
hundred  men  fit  for  duty,  he  left  the  fort  and  marched 
eastward  to  Philadelphia. 

He  left  Fort  Cumberland  in  charge  of  Colonel 
Innes,  with  one  company  of  Virginians  and  one  of 
Maryland  Rangers.  About  1824,  what  were  supposed 
to  be  the  remains  of  General  Braddock,  were  found 
by  some  workmen  repairing  the  National  Road. 
They  were  removed,  reburied  near  the  road  under 
an  oak,  and  marked  Braddock's  grave.  Some  years 
afterward,  English  gentlemen  visiting  the  spot  caused 
a  plain  fence  to  be  erected  around  it,  and  thus  it 
stands  now,  after  nearly  threescore  and  ten  years. 

This  affair  began  about  i  p.  M.  and  ended  by  five 
o'clock.  It  was  short  and  sharp.  De  Beaujeu,  the 
French  commander,  was  killed  early  in  the  action. 
There  were  two  hundred  and  fifty  French  and  Ca 
nadians  and  six  hundred  and  fifty  Indians  in  the  at 
tacking  force.  On  the  English  side  were  the  two 
regular  regiments  of  seasoned  veterans  of  five  hun 
dred  each  recruited  up  to  seven  hundred,  five  com 
panies  of  Virginia  troops,  fifty  Maryland  Rangers, 
one  hundred  South  Carolinians,  one  hundred  North 
Carolinians,  but  in  the  advanced  column  actually 
engaged  only  twelve  hundred  men  were  present. 
There  were  no  Maryland  troops  in  the  expedition 
except  Captain  Dagworthy's.  The  French  account 
says  they  counted  thirteen  hundred  and  fifty  dead 
on  the  field  and  on  the  retreat.  There  is  no  doubt 


BRADDOCK. 


57 


that  all  they  did  count  were  dead,  but  only  twelve 
hundred  were  engaged. 

Colonel  Sir  Peter  Halkett,  of  the  Forty-fourth, 
his  son,  who  was  brigade  major,  and  William  Shirley, 
son  of  General  and  Governor  Shirley,  of  Massachu 
setts,  were  killed.  Colonel  Burton,  of  the  Forty- 
eighth,  and  Sir  John  St.  Clair,  were  wounded.  Of 
eighty-nine  commissioned  officers  in  the  two  regi 
ments  of  regulars  in  the  fight,  twenty-six  were  killed 
and  thirty-seven  wounded  ;  four  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven  men  were  reported  killed  and  three  hundred 
and  eighty-five  wounded — a  total  loss  of  eight  hun 
dred  and  fifteen  men. 

All  the  wounded  who  were  left  on  the  field  were 
killed  by  the  Indians,  with  the  exception  of  two  re 
markable  men,  Dr.  Hugh  Mercer  and  a  comrade,  who, 
left  wounded,  made  his  way  through  the  woods  to 
give  up  his  life,  as  General  Mercer  at  the  battle  of 
Princeton,  fighting  the  king  he  came  so  near  dying 
for  at  the  battle  of  the  Monongahela.  The  oppos 
ing  force  lost  not  thirty  men  and  their  commander. 

Captain  Washington  was  untouched,  although  he 
had  two  horses  killed  under  him  and  several  bullets 
through  his  clothes.  He  reported  to  the  Governor 
of  Virginia  that  his  rangers  had  "  fought  like  soldiers 
and  died  like  men."  Beyond  a  peradventure,  his 
coolness,  his  self-control,  his  will  saved  all  that  was 
saved.  If  it  had  not  been  for  him,  every  British 
soldier  would  have  been  scalped.  Twelve  of  them, 
taken  prisoners,  were  burned  alive  at  Fort  Du  Quesne 
the  next  evening. 

And  the  endurance  of  the  Virginian  captain  is  won 
derful.  After  the  entire  day,  from  four  o'clock  in 
the  morning  of  the  Qth  until  dark  of  the  loth,  in  the 


58  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

saddle,  four  hours  of  it  under  the  fiercest  fire,  which 
is  the  most  exhausting  excitement  known  to  man,  he 
rode  and  walked  all  night  back  to  Dunbar's  camp 
and  returned  at  once  to  his  wounded  chief,  and  from 
the  pth  until  the  i6th  never  took  his  clothes  off  or 
laid  down  to  sleep  undressed.  The  iron  will  was 
equaled  by  the  iron  frame  and  the  iron  constitution, 
and  this  prodigious  effort  was  made  by  a  man  who 
had  been  left  behind  at  Dunbar's  camp,  too  ill  to  ac 
company  the  command,  and  had  only  reached  the 
army  the  evening  before  the  battle,  hauled  in  a 
wagon  because  he  was  too  weak  to  ride.  The  ex 
hibition  of  endurance  by  Captain  Washington  for 
seven  days  after  the  battle  exceeded  that  of  courage, 
coolness,  and  self-control  by  him  on  the  disastrous 
field.  He  was  then  in  his  twenty-fifth  year. 

The  immediate  consequence  of  the  rout  of  Brad- 
dock  was  a  more  vigorous  effort  on  the  part  of  the 
Government,  which  resulted  in  the  Treaty  of  Paris 
of  1763,  whereby  Canada  and  Florida  were  both 
ceded  to  Great  Britain,  and  the  Roman  Catholic 
power  was  eliminated  as  a  political  element  on  the 
North  American  continent  from  the  Arctic  circle  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Mississippi  River.  West  of  that  river  the  Spanish 
Americans  claimed  jurisdiction  to  the  Pacific  —  a 
claim  to  be  entirely  extinguished  in  the  next  two 
generations. 

The  far-reaching  results  of  that  campaign  were, 
first,  the  annihilation  of  British  prestige  among  the 
provincials;  second,  fraternity  and  a  tendency  to  co 
operate  among  all  the  English  in  America  ;  third,  a 
distinct  bias  toward  independence  of  the  mother 
country.  The  seven  years'  war  in  America  was  dis- 


BRADDOCK. 


59 


tinctly  a  war  of  race  and  religion.  The  English 
Protestants  were  pressed  on  the  North  by  the  French 
and  on  the  South  and  West  by  the  Spaniards,  both 
adherents  of  the  Church  of  Rome. 

The  conquest  of  Canada  and  the  cession  of  Florida 
immediately  relieved  the  provincials  from  the  hostile 
pressure  of  the  Roman  Catholics  and  the  Indians, 
and  from  their  dependence  on  home.  They  had  co 
operated  together  during  the  war,  each  province  by 
its  own  General  Assembly  voting  men  and  money 
for  the  common  defense,  according  to  its  judgment 
of  what  was  just  and  necessary,  and  at  the  battle  of 
the  Monongahela  with  the  two  regiments  of  British 
regulars  there  were  present  companies  from  Virginia, 
New  York,  Maryland,  and  the  Carolinas,  who  in  the 
North  had  fought  the  French  and  Indians,  and  in 
the  South  the  Spaniards  and  Indians — all  Roman 
Catholics. 

An  extract  from  a  newspaper  of  the  day  will  give 
some  idea  of  the  sentiment  pervading  the  English  in 
America,  for  in  the  Catholic  province  of  Maryland, 
the  birthplace  and  nursery  of  freedom  of  thought  in 
all  the  world,  the  fire  of  bigotry  burned  as  fiercely 
as  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  where  the  idea  of  liberty  of 
conscience  had  as  yet  never  penetrated.  In  Green's 
Maryland  Gazette,  published  at  Annapolis  on  July 
31,  1755,  is  contained  an  account  of  Braddock's  de 
feat  on  July  pth,  three  weeks  previous.  "  After  the 
engagement,"  says  the  newspaper,  "  the  Indians  pur 
sued  our  people  to  the  Monongahela,  and  scalped  and 
plundered  all  that  were  left  on  the  field,  except  five 
or  six,  who,  not  being  able  to  keep  pace  with  the 
victors  in  their  return  to  the  fort,  were  all  treated  in 
the  same  manner,  one  Virginian  only  surviving  it. 


6o  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

[Oh,  horrid  barbarity,  to  kill  in  cold  blood !  But, 
Protestant  reader,  such  is  the  treatment  we  may  ex 
pect  to  receive  from  his  most  Christian  Majesty's 
American  allies  if  ever  we  should  be  so  unhappy  as 
to  fall  in  their  hands,  except  we  give  up  our  re 
ligious  liberty,  and  everything  that  is  dear  and  valu 
able,  and  submit  to  be  his  vassals,  and  dupes  of  the 
Romish  clergy,  whose  most  tender  mercies  are  but 
hellish  cruelties,  wherever  they  have  the  power  to 
exercise  them.]  " 

The  French  Minister  of  War  began  immediately 
to  intrigue  to  stir  up  dissension  with  the  mother 
country,  and  to  encourage  the  growing  feeling  of 
strength  and  maturity  which  began  rapidly  to  per 
vade  the  English  in  America.  The  New  England 
colonies  had  never  been  loyal  to  the  Crown  or  to 
the  traditions  of  their  ancestors.  Planted  by  refu 
gees  from  social  and  religious  ostracism,  they  had 
always  been  in  sympathy  with  discontent  at  home. 
Enterprising,  energetic,  and  intellectual,  the  necessi 
ties  of  their  environment,  the  rigors  of  their  climate, 
and  the  constant  struggle  with  the  forces  of  Nature, 
had  developed  a  character  which  for  self-control  and 
concentration  has  rarely  been  equaled,  and  never  ex 
celled,  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Their  position 
had  created  a  trade,  arising  out  of  natural  conditions, 
which  was  very  profitable.  They  smuggled  sugar 
from  the  West  Indies,  converted  it  into  rum  in  New 
England,  carried  the  rum  to  Africa,  where  they  bar 
tered  it  for  negroes,  and  the  negroes  to  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  where  they  exchanged  them  for  tobacco, 
which  they  sold  at  their  home. 

The  breaking  up  of  this  profitable  exchange  by 
the  enforcement  of  the  regulations  of  trade  between 


BRADDOCK.  6l 

the  colonies  and  the  mother  country,  whereby  all 
products  of  any  colony  could  be  shipped  to  any  other 
colony  only  through  home  ports  in  home  bottoms, 
naturally  and  justly  enraged  the  New  Englanders. 
They  had  never  been  monarchists,  and  they  had  be 
come  hostile  to  aristocratic  institutions. 

But  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  the  social  organiza 
tion  was  entirely  different.  Many  cadets  of  noble 
families  had  settled  in  these  colonies,  or  been  pro 
vided  with  offices  under  the  provincial  governments. 
All  their  sympathies  were  with  the  established  order 
at  home.  They  were  the  pets  of  the  monarchy.  The 
trade  regulations  did  not  disturb  them  ;  they  had  no 
ships  or  commerce  of  their  own,  and  there  was  no 
radical  reason  why  they  should  participate  in  a  move 
ment  that  must,  beyond  a  doubt,  result  in  a  separa 
tion  from  the  mother  country. 

And  there  existed  a  sentiment  in  the  two  colonies 
on  the  Chesapeake  widely  differing  from  the  sym 
pathies  of  New  England.  Jacobitism,  sympathy 
with  the  Stuarts,  had  never  been  extinguished  in  the 
old  cavalier  colonies.  Their  leading  families  were 
almost  all  cavalier.  George  Mason's  grandfather 
had  commanded  a  royalist  troop  at  Marston  Moor, 
and  Washington's  ancestor  had  held  Worcester  for 
the  King.  The  grandfather  of  Thomas  Johnson,  a 
leader  of  the  Revolution  in  Maryland,  who  nominated 
Washington  for  commander  in  chief,  came  over  in 
1690,  and  in  1693  was  arrested  and  recognized  for 
good  behavior  by  the  Governor  and  council  for  say 
ing,  "  The  people  are  all  rogues  to  the  King,  and  that 
he  would  swear  to  no  king  but  King  James." 

Charles  II  was  proclaimed  King  as  soon  as  the 
news  of  the  death  of  his  father  reached  St.  Mary's, 


62  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

and  Charles  was  King  of  Maryland  eleven  years 
before  he  was  King  of  England.  The  ancestor  of 
Richard  Henry  Lee,  author  of  the  resolution  of  in 
dependence,  had  been  sent  by  Virginia  to  Breda,  to 
induce  Charles  to  come  to  Virginia  and  establish  his 
government  there;  and  although  the  Commonwealth 
did  send  a  fleet  "to  reduce  the  settlements  on  the 
Chesapeake,"  and  the  old  governments  were  recon 
structed  and  Commonwealth  governments  actually 
set  up  by  the  bayonet  in  these  two  provinces,  they 
never  had  the  respect,  sympathy,  or  support  of  the 
body  of  the  people.  They  fell  as  soon  as  the  prop 
was  removed. 

When  New  England  began  to  move  in  resistance 
to  the  royal  authority,  the  first  impulse  of  the  Eng 
lish  on  the  Chesapeake  was  to  stand  by  them,  for 
with  them  and  their  ancestors,  from  time  immemo 
rial,  the  controlling  element  of  character  has  been 
that  "blood  is  thicker  than  water";  and  the  next 
feeling  that  stirred  the  people  was  that  now  they 
could  get  rid  of  the  House  of  Hanover  and  all  its 
disgusting  surroundings. 

Dr.  Hugh  Mercer,  of  the  Braddock  campaign — 
afterward  General  Mercer,  of  the  battles  of  Trenton 
and  of  Princeton — had  been  on  the  staff  of  Prince 
Charles  at  Culloden,  and  both  colonies  were  full  of 
the  defeated  and  disappointed  adherents  of  the  Stu 
arts.  It  is  not  probable  that  sympathy  for  the  Stu 
arts  and  dislike  to  the  House  of  Hanover  was  the 
dominating  force  that  created  the  revolution,  but  it 
was  one  of  the  forces. 

The  Jacobite  sentiment  was  strong  on  the  Chesa 
peake,  and  led  men  more  easily  to  recur  to  the  funda 
mental  principles  of  English  liberty.  Their  ancestors 


BRADDOCK.  63 

had  always  insisted  that  they  would  be  governed  only 
by  laws  of  their  own  making,  made  by  their  repre 
sentatives  in  Parliament  assembled.  Every  English 
man's  house  was  his  castle.  Every  man's  property 
was  his  own,  and  no  part  of  it  could  legally  be  taken 
for  public  use,  to  defend  the  State,  or  to  support  the 
Government,  without  his  consent,  freely  given  by  his 
representative. 

The  belief  was  firmly  imbedded  in  their  hearts 
that  there  could  be  "  no  taxation  without  representa 
tion."  And  another  right,  the  inheritance  of  Eng 
lishmen,  was  the  right  to  resist  illegal  government, 
by  force  and  arms.  The  right  of  rebellion  was  as 
well  defined  as  the  right  of  representation,  and  rebel 
lion  was  not  necessarily  revolution.  Rebellion  cor 
rected  the  abuses  of  government;  revolution  over 
turned  government  itself.  Rebellion  secured  new 
guarantees  for  liberty ;  revolution  created  new 
government. 

Thus  had  the  barons  wrung  from  John  the  guar 
antees  of  the  great  charter — a  grant  from  the  Crown 
of  security  for  rights  to  a  class.  Thus  had  the  Par 
liament  resisted  the  exactions  of  the  Star  Chamber 
and  its  attempt  to  levy  ship  money,  taxes  without  the 
consent  of  the  taxed.  Thus  had  the  body  of  the 
people  overthrown  the  Commonwealth  when  it  at 
tempted  to  govern  England  without  a  king  or  House 
of  Lords,  and  thus  revolutionize  the  ancient  consti 
tution  of  the  realm ;  and  thus  had  the  grandfathers 
of  the  leaders  of  the  American  Revolution  expelled 
James  Stuart  when  he  purposed  to  establish  abso 
lute  government  in  England.  The  idea  of  forcible 
resistance  to  illegal  government  was  deeply  imbed 
ded  in  the  American  heart. 


64  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

The  convention  between  the  Commonwealth  and 
Virginia,  in  1651,  secured  to  the  Virginians  the  right 
to  make  their  own  laws  and  to  tax  themselves.  The 
charter  of  Maryland  guaranteed  to  the  people  of 
that  province  the  same  rights ;  and  when  the  Gov 
ernor  attempted  to  levy  taxes  by  proclamation,  fix 
ing  the  fees  of  the  land  office,  the  General  Assembly 
promptly  denounced  the  illegal  act,  and,  in  a  report 
on  the  inalienable  rights  of  Englishmen — which,  it 
has  been  said,  was  worthy  of  the  most  distinguished 
statesman  of  England — demonstrated  that  taxes 
could  only  be  legally  levied  by  the  representatives 
of  the  people  who  were  taxed. 

When  the  Governor  of  North  Carolina  attempted 
to  coerce  the  North  Carolinians  into  paying  taxes 
without  their  consent — disguised  as  illegal  fees — 
they  promptly  applied  the  ancestral  remedy,  and  in 
arms  resisted  the  King's  Governor  and  the  King's 
troops  at  the  battle  of  the  Alamance,  in  1771.  They 
were  defeated  with  heavy  loss,  and  some  were 
promptly  hung  as  traitors;  but  that  only  proved 
that  the  King's  troops  were  better  armed,  better 
disciplined,  and  better  commanded  than  the  regu 
lators.  It  settled  nothing  as  to  the  right  of  taxa 
tion  and  the  right  of  rebellion.  In  1772  the  people 
of  Rhode  Island  captured  and  burned  to  the  water's 
edge  the  Royal  armed  vessel  the  Gaspe,  in  Narra- 
gansett  Bay,  for  attempting  to  enforce  the  revenue 
laws;  and  Stephen  Hopkins,  Chief  Justice  of  Rhode 
Island,  refused  to  issue  warrants  for  the  guilty  par 
ties  or  to  recognize  their  arrest  as  legal. 

When  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  in  1765,  requir 
ing  that  all  process  of  courts,  conveyances,  and  legal 
papers  should  be  on  stamped  paper,  the  County 


BRADDOCK.  65 

Court  of  Frederick  County,  Maryland,  in  November, 
1765,  decided  that  the  act  did  not  bind  the  freemen 
of  Maryland,  who  had  had  no  voice  in  its  enactment, 
and  committed  their  clerk  to  prison  for  contempt  in 
refusing  to  obey  their  order  to  issue  process  without 
stamps.  Thus  in  all  the  English  colonies  the  right 
of  resistance  and  rebellion  had  been  claimed,  as 
serted,  and  exercised. 

A  common  sentiment,  a  common  danger,  and  a 
common  cause  are  potent  forces  toward  creating 
sympathy  and  concerted  action.  The  hearts  of  men 
are  more  efficient  allies  than  their  heads,  for  they  do 
not  calculate  consequences.  With  the  destruction 
of  British  prestige  came  of  necessity  the  obliteration 
of  provincialism — the  admitted  superiority  of  every 
thing  home-born  or  home-produced  to  everything 
colonial.  Thackeray  faithfully  paints  the  picture  of 
the  time  when  he  describes  the  young  Virginian  vis 
iting  the  home  of  his  fathers  as  regarded  as  a  young 
Mohawk,  and  an  object  of  surprise  because  he  was 
white.  Braddock  himself  and  his  officers  did  not 
measure  up  to  the  colonial  standard  of  manners,  of 
education,  or  of  intelligence.  Their  superiors  in 
every  respect  could  be  found  in  the  routs  at  Wil- 
liamsburg  and  Annapolis,  or  the  parlors  of  Philadel 
phia,  New  York,  and  Boston ;  and  in  place  of  the 
provincial  feeling  of  inferiority,  rapidly  developed  a 
continental  sentiment  of  present  equality,  with  a 
swelling  sense  of  a  great  destiny,  when  America 
would  fill  and  act  a  great  part  in  the  future  of  the 
human  race. 

When  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed  the  continent 
called  the  comrades  of  the  battle  of  the  Mononga- 
hela  to  come  together  and  consult  as  to  what  the 


66  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

common  right  was  entitled  to,  and  what  the  common 
interest  required  to  be  done.  The  Braddock  cam 
paign  was  the  author  of  the  Stamp  Act  congress,  as 
that  was  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  and  they 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
were  all  the  product  of  great  historical  forces  which 
direct  the  march  of  nations  and  the  development  of 
races,  and  lead  to  results  beyond  human  prevision, 
human  fears,  or  human  hopes. 


CHAPTER    IV. 
THE  PLANTER'S  LIFE  AND  MARRIAGE. 

DURING  the  years  prior  to  the  breaking  out  of  the 
rebellion,  Washington  devoted  himself  to  his  large 
estate  on  the  Potomac,  his  servants,  his  crops,  and  his 
stock.  The  most  curious  disquisitions  have  been 
written  and  most  extraordinary  analyses  been  made 
as  to  the  wonderful  traits  of  this  astonishing  youth. 
He  is  a  prig,  or  a  phenomenon,  according  to  the 
point  of  view  and  the  medium  through  which  he  is 
examined.  In  one  of  his  youthful  letters,  unfortu 
nately  preserved,  reference  is  made  to  a  "  lowland 
beauty  "  to  whom  his  adolescent  fancy  had  turned ; 
and  half  a  dozen  Virginian  families  still  claim  that 
their  ancestress  was  the  lowland  beauty.  He  fell 
in  love  with  Mary  Bland,  of  Westmoreland  ;  with 
Lucy  Grimes,  who  afterward  married  "  Light  Horse 
Harry  "  Lee,  and  became  the  mother  of  Robert  E. 
Lee — greatest  of  the  line  of  Lees ;  with  Mary  Gary, 
of  Vaucluse  ;  with  Betsey  Fauntleroy,  of  Richmond 
County;  and  with  Mary  Phillipse,  the  heiress,  of  New 
York — not  to  mention  the  hundred  other  girls  from 
Boston  to  Annapolis  with  whom  the  young  Vir 
ginian  colonel  flirted  and  made  love. 

There  is  a  portrait  of  Colonel  Washington, 
painted  by  Charles  Wilson  Peale,  at  Mount  Vernon, 
in  1772,  as  colonel  of  the  Twenty-second  Regiment, 
6 


68  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

Virginia  Militia.  It  is  in  the  uniform  of  a  Virginia 
colonel — blue  coat,  scarlet  vest  and  breeches,  and 
represents  a  young  man.  His  smooth-shaven  face 
and  natural  hair  show  a  complexion  as  clean  and 
clear  as  perfect  health,  happy  surroundings,  and  good 
habits,  with  constant  life  in  the  open  air,  can  give, 
and  is  as  fine  a  specimen  of  manly  beauty  as  is  ever 
seen.  The  frontispiece  to  this  volume  is  copied  from 
Peale's  admirable  portrait.  The  caricatures  of  Stuart 
and  Trumbull,  and  the  rest,  when  life  had  become  a 
burden  to  escape  the  portrait  painters,  give  no  idea 
of  the  young  Virginian  of  i/56-'72. 

The  Virginian  way  always  has  been  to  make 
love  to  every  pretty  girl  with  whom  he  was  thrown. 
Young,  handsome,  with  the  second  fortune  in  the 
province,  and  family  as  good  as  any — for  Lord  Fair 
fax's  Scotch  barony  did  not  outrank,  in  the  esti 
mation  of  the  cavalier  Virginians,  the  position  in 
society  and  claim  for  respect  of  the  descendant  of 
that  Colonel  Washington  who  held  Worcester  for  the 
king  and  for  so  long  answered  to  every  summons  for 
surrender  "  at  his  Majestie's  pleasure  " — with  the 
first  military  reputation  among  the  soldiers  Vir 
ginia's  wars  against  the  French  and  Indians  had 
trained — with  the  grave,  decorous  manners  of  his 
generation,  no  man  in  Virginia  would  naturally 
be  received  by  the  matrons  and  maids  who  clus 
tered  at  the  country  houses  along  the  Potomac,  the 
Rappahannock,  the  Pamunkey,  and  the  James,  with 
more  cordial  welcome  than  Colonel  Washington,  of 
Mount  Vernon. 

At  Belvoir  with  the  Fairfaxes,  at  Vaucluse  with 
the  Carys,  at  Eagle's  Nest  with  the  Fitzhughs,  at 
Stratford  House  with  the  Lees;  with  the  Carters  at 


THE    PLANTER'S   LIFE    AND    MARRIAGE. 


69 


Sabine  Hall,  and  with  the  Fauntleroys  in  Richmond, 
then  as  now,  a  well-born  and  agreeable,  handsome, 
rich,  distinguished  young  gentleman  was  a  welcome 
guest,  and  George  Washington  became  the  toast  of 
the  tide-water  country.  What  wonder,  then,  that  he 
fell  in  love  with  every  pretty  girl  and  told  her  so, 
in  his  visitings  among  his  neighbors,  and  on  his 
official  journeys  to  and  from  Williamsburgh,  when 
his  habitual  stopping  places  were  at  these  very 
country  houses,  and  his  customary  hostesses  these 
girls  and  their  mothers! 

Washington  was  a  man  all  over — a  man  with 
strong  appetites,  fierce  temper,  positive,  belligerent, 
and  aggressive.  The  quality  in  which  he  differed 
from  almost  all  men  was  his  absolutely  perfect  con 
trol  over  his  passions  and  his  mind.  In  his  boy 
hood  he  appreciated  the  weak  points  of  his  character 
— his  tendency  to  be  moved  by  impulse  and  sudden 
tempests  of  emotion — and  he  set  himself  deliberately 
to  work  to  correct  these  infirmities.  His  fortitude, 
his  patience,  his  perseverance,  his  tenacity,  were  all 
the  result  of  this  introspection,  and,  taken  with  the 
severe  physical  training  of  his  youth,  in  the  woods 
with  his  horse  and  gun,  in  the  forest  with  his  hatchet 
and  surveyor's  compass,  fitted  him  for  control  over 
the  wills  of  other  men,  and  rendered  him  capable  of 
dealing  with  great  affairs,  when  the  time  called  for 
those  qualities.  As  soon  as  Fort  Du  Quesne  fell  he 
resigned  his  commission  and  returned  to  Mount  Ver- 
non.  On  January  6,  1759,  he  married  Martha  Dan- 
dridge  Custis,  the  widow  of  Daniel  Parke  Custis,  a 
Virginia  gentleman  of  family  and  estate,  and  herself 
of  a  well-established  Virginia  family.  Daniel  Parke 
Custis  was  the  grandson  of  John  Parke. 


70  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

By  one  of  those  curious  turns  of  fortune,  Mrs. 
Custis  and  her  children — she  had  two  by  her  first 
marriage — were  possessed  of  the  estate  of  the  White 
House  on  the  Pamunkey  River,  which  had  been  origi 
nally  granted  to  William  Claiborne,  once  Secretary  of 
the  province,  to  whom  it  had  been  given  for  a  great 
victory  over  the  Pamunkey  Indians.  He  had  been 
expelled  from  his  legal  possession  of  Kent  Island, 
in  Maryland,  by  the  Calverts,  and  for  eight  genera 
tions  has  been  stigmatized  as  "  rebel."  "  Rebel  "  is 
one  who  has  unsuccessfully  resisted  wrong.  It  always 
has  been  so,  and  always  will  be  so.  The  defeated 
are  always  wrong,  and  there  is  no  greater  crime  in 
the  category  of  politics  than  failure.  The  estate 
of  the  White  House  passed  from  the  Claibornes  to 
the  Parkes,  to  the  Custises,  to  Washington's  step 
children,  and  through  them  to  the  Lees,  where  it 
now  vests. 

The  marriage  took  place  at  the  little  church  near 
the  White  House,  near  Tunstall's  station  on  the  York 
River  Railroad,  from  which  the  site  of  the  original 
White  House  may  still  be  seen  embowered  in  trees 
on  the  south  bank  of  the  Pamunkey.  The  wedding 
was  attended  by  Governor  Fauquier  and  all  the  gen 
try  from  Williamsburgh  and  the  Northern  Neck,  with 
all  the  bravery  of  London  coaches  and  new  London 
liveries,  and,  as  may  well  be  imagined,  was  a  social 
event  of  the  first  magnitude.  After  the  wedding  the 
newly  wedded  couple  drove  to  Mount  Vernon  in  their 
coach  and  four,  bright  with  the  Washington  colors 
of  red  and  white,  and  attended  by  a  troop  of 
friends  —  for  a  Virginian  wedding  is  not  a  brief 
ceremonial ;  it  is  a  prolonged  festivity,  and  every 
relative,  friend,  and  well-wisher  is  expected  to  enjoy 


THE  PLANTER'S   LIFE   AND   MARRIAGE.       >]\ 

the  hospitalities  of  all  the  family  within  practicable 
distance. 

A  man  on  horseback  would  be  sent  ahead,  from 
stopping  place  to  stopping  place,  to  notify  the  cousin, 
or  the  uncle,  or  the  aunt,  living  on  the  route,  that  the 
party  would  be  there  at  such  a  time.  And  so  they 
went,  twenty,  thirty,  forty,  or  fifty  kinspeople,  with 
their  horses,  their  dogs,  and  their  servants,  and  with 
them  came  mirth  and  jollity,  innocent  and  simple 
pleasures,  enjoyed  by  healthy,  robust  natures,  abso 
lutely  devoid  of  selfishness  and  intrigue. 

By  day  and  by  night  the  girls  enjoyed  themselves 
in  dancing  and  flirting,  and  the  men  were  hunting 
the  deer  or  the  fox,  or  shooting  the  Virginian  par 
tridge,  or  the  ducks,  geese,  and  swans  with  which  the 
waters  were  thronged.  At  night  the  younger  men 
courted  the  girls  and  the  older  ones  played  cards, 
until  the  day  wound  up  with  a  supper  of  game,  fish, 
oysters,  ham,  turkey,  beef  and  mutton  home-raised, 
with  plentiful  bowls  of  punch,  apple  toddy,  and  egg- 
nog  in  season.  While  these  people  drank  freely  and 
frequently,  the  life  in  the  open  air,  the  constant  exer 
cise  indoors  and  out,  prevented  or  cured  excess,  and 
drinking  brought  no  ill  effects,  physically  or  morally. 
When  the  newly  married  couple  were  settled  at 
Mount  Vernon,  they  entertained,  as  was  the  custom 
of  the  country,  frequently  and  generously.  Colonel 
Washington  understood  that  hospitality  was  one  of 
the  customs  and  the  duties  of  his  station,  and  he 
ordered  his  life  to  do  his  duty  by  his  position,  his 
wife,  his  servants,  his  property,  and  himself. 

The  management  of  a  great  estate  of  necessity 
must  require  organization  and  order.  Everything 
must  be  done  in  the  proper  way  and  at  the  proper 


72  GENERAL    WASHINGTON. 

time,  and  a  record  must  be  kept  of  all  the  events  of 
the  little  world — the  microcosm  of  the  plantation. 
Every  marriage  among  the  dependents  must  be  duly 
recorded  in  the  Almanac  or  the  Farm  Book ;  every 
birth  must  be  put  down  ;  every  increase  or  diminu 
tion  of  stock  entered  ;  all  crops  raised  and  all  ex 
penses  accounted  for,  and  a  diary  kept  preserving  a 
statement  of  diurnal  transactions. 

It  has  been  the  fashion  to  depict  Washington  as 
a  young  man  of  preternatural  pomposity  and  grav 
ity,  of  ponderous  courtesy,  and  prodigious  and  elab 
orate  manners.  But  he  certainly  was  neither.  He 
was  a  Virginian  gentleman  of  his  epoch,  with  all  the 
characteristics  of  his  day  and  generation.  He  loved 
a  glass  of  wine,  a  game  of  cards,  a  pretty  girl,  a 
good  horse,  a  fast  run  after  the  hounds,  and  a  rat 
tling  rush  through  the  woods  after  the  deer — and  he 
loved  these  animal  pleasures  intensely.  He  was 
grave  and  decorous  in  deportment — so  was  every 
gentleman ;  he  was  careful  and  painstaking  about 
his  property  affairs — so  were  many  heads  of  fami 
lies.  But  he  was  absolutely  and  perfectly  self  con 
trolled.  He  never  let  go  his  hand  on  himself  for  an 
instant.  Several  times  during  his  life  the  fiery  tem 
per  got  away  from  the  hand  of  iron — as  with  the 
Connecticut  colonels  at  New  York,  with  Charles  Lee 
at  Monmouth  or  with  Hamilton  at  Philadelphia;  but 
generally  the  control  of  his  strong  nature  was  entire 
ly  unshaken. 

The  government  of  a  plantation  was  like  the 
discipline  of  a  regiment.  Without  firmness,  intelli 
gence,  and  order  everything  goes  to  pieces  ;  and  what 
might  with  proper  direction  and  control  be  made  to 
accomplish  useful  purposes,  becomes  a  broken,  dis- 


THE  PLANTER'S   LIFE   AND   MARRIAGE.       73 

arranged  machine,  with  every  part  misfitting  and  out 
of  order.  The  estate  of  Mount  Vernon  was  no  such 
mismanaged  organization.  Its  master  and  mistress 
were  both  capable,  courageous,  and  conscientious 
people,  who  did  their  duty  most  fairly  and  fully  by 
themselves,  their  men-servants  and  their  maid-serv 
ants,  their  oxen  and  their  asses,  and  everything  that 
was  theirs. 

Colonel  Washington  was  the  representative  of 
Fairfax  County  in  the  House  of  Burgesses  at  Wil- 
liamsburgh,  and  a  vestryman  of  Truro  Parish  on  the 
Potomac.  As  vestryman,  he  did  his  part  toward 
overseeing  the  comfort  of  his  neighbors  by  giving 
them  good  roads,  and  administering  proper  police 
regulations  against  the  roaming  of  servants  from 
plantations  after  nightfall. 

When  he  attended  the  House  of  Burgesses,  soon 
after  his  marriage,  Mr.  Speaker  Robinson,  says  tra 
dition,  upon  calling  the  House  to  order,  took  oc 
casion  to  thank  "  the  gentleman  from  Fairfax  for 
his  service  to  Virginia " ;  and  the  gentleman  from 
Fairfax,  rising  in  his  seat  to  make  his  acknowledg 
ments,  was  so  overcome  with  bashfulness  that  he 
could  not  speak.  Whereupon  the  Speaker  called  out, 
"  Take  your  seat,  Mr.  Washington  ;  your  modesty 
excels  your  valor,  and  that  exceeds  the  power  of 
language  to  express." 

Like  many  of  the  demigod  myths  and  fables  of 
Washington,  this  story  smacks  of  the  incredible. 
In  the  first  place,  those  people  at  that  time,  as  now, 
were  not  inclined  or  partial  to  dramatic  perform 
ances  by  themselves.  Among  the  Virginians  there 
has  never  been  the  slightest  tendency  toward  gush. 
With  the  deepest  feeling  of  love  or  resentment,  of 


74 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


devotion  or  of  hatred,  they  never  make  public  dem 
onstrations  of  them.  Pickett's  men  marched  up  the 
slope  at  Gettysburg  without  a  cheer,  right  into  the 
jaws  of  death. 

And,  further,  the  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Bur 
gesses  was  an  experienced  and  well-read  parliamen 
tary  lawyer,  and  he  knew  that  for  the  Speaker  to 
compliment  or  reprimand  a  member  in  his  place  was 
one  of  the  highest  prerogatives  of  the  House,  and 
could  only  be  done  by  express  authority  of  the 
House.  When,  therefore,  the  Speaker  by  order  of  the 
House  presented  its  thanks  to  Colonel  Washington, 
the  dignified  and  becoming  thing  for  Colonel  Wash 
ington  to  do  was  to  rise  in  his  place,  bow  to  the 
Speaker,  and  take  his  seat  as  he  did.  The  idea  of 
his  attempting  to  "  answer  back"  originated  in  an 
other  latitude — never  among  Virginians. 

Everywhere  in  Virginia  he  was  of  the  first  repu 
tation  and  of  the  highest  influence.  One  of  the 
local  stories  is  that,  the  parish  requiring  a  new 
church,  the  question  was  much  debated  whether  it 
should  be  located  at  a  more  central  place,  or  the 
ancient  one  preserved.  George  Mason,  one  of  the 
vestry,  was  ardent,  enthusiastic,  and  eloquent  in 
urging  them  to  stand  by  the  old  landmarks,  con 
secrated  by  the  ashes  of  their  worthy  ancestors  and 
sacred  to  all  the  memories  of  life,  marriage,  birth, 
and  death. 

Colonel  Washington  replied  by  producing  a  plat 
of  the  parish,  drawn  by  himself  with  his  well-known 
accuracy,  on  which  every  road  was  laid  down  and 
the  house  of  every  gentleman  was  marked,  and 
which  showed  that  the  new  location  advocated  by 
him  was  more  convenient  to  every  member  of  the 


THE   PLANTER'S   LIFE   AND   MARRIAGE.       75 

parish,  and  that  the  old  one  was  exceedingly  inac 
cessible.  The  parochial  meeting  decided  in  favor  of 
the  new  location  and  the  plat.  George  Mason  put 
on  his  hat  and  stalked  out  of  the  meeting,  saying  in 
not  smothered  tones,  "  That's  what  gentlemen  get 
for  engaging  in  debate  with  a  d — d  surveyor  !  "  But 
notwithstanding  this  little  tiff,  the  owners  of  Gunston 
Hall  and  of  Mount  Vernon  had  the  highest  respect 
and  warmest  affection  for  each  other. 

Mason  was  much  the  older  man,  a  scholar  and 
a  student  rather  than  a  man  of  affairs.  He  re 
garded  his  young  neighbor,  soldier-planter,  manager 
of  the  Ohio  Company,  projector  of  the  transconti 
nental  water  line  by  the  Potomac,  the  Monongahela, 
the  Ohio,  and  the  Wabash  to  the  Lakes,  with  the 
respect  and  admiration  with  which  the  man  of  ideas 
looks  upon  the  man  of  affairs  ;  while  Washington 
revered  the  older  man  with  the  veneration  with 
which  the  youth  with  life  and  the  world  before  him 
regards  the  sage  who  lives  in  the  past. 

Mason  was  well  known  in  the  Dominion  as  a  man 
with  the  highest  ideals  of  duty  and  of  character,  of 
vigorous  intellect,  a  student  of  men  and  books.  He 
was  the  author  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  of  Virginia, 
wherein,  following  the  example  of  his  ancestors  in 
the  Petition  of  Right  and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  he  fur 
nished  the  precedent  for  all  American  common 
wealths  up  to  this  time.  It  is  unfortunate  for  pos 
terity  that  he  refused  to  participate  in  Continental 
politics.  Elected  to  Congress,  he  declined  to  accept 
the  place ;  and  although  he  served  in  the  Constitu 
tional  Convention,  he  failed  to  procure  acceptance 
of  his  ideas  by  that  body,  as  experience  has  proved, 
greatly  to  the  injury  of  posterity. 


76  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

When,  following  the  lead  of  Virginia  and  Massa 
chusetts,  committees  of  correspondence  were  formed 
all  over  the  country,  county  committees  were  organ 
ized  for  the  purpose  of  disseminating  information 
and  educating  the  people.  The  county  meeting  is 
the  descendant  of  the  folkmote,  and  is  as  old  as  the 
race.  Whenever  and  wherever  any  attack  has  been 
made  on  the  common  right,  the  neighborhood  meets 
in  council  for  co-operation  and  organization.  The 
county  committees  in  England  assumed  the  govern 
ment  of  the  counties  in  i64i-'45,  disciplined  the 
"  disloyal,"  and  made  the  disaffected  contribute  to 
the  support  of  the  common  cause  against  the  king. 

The  very  first  movement  of  sedition  and  rebel 
lion  in  America  was  made  in  the  county  committees 
and  town  meetings.  In  New  England  local  govern 
ment  was  administered  by  town  meetings.  In  Vir 
ginia  and  the  South  it  was  by  the  vestries,  which 
met  every  month  for  the  purpose  of  regulating  the 
police  affairs  of  the  parish. 

The  first  step  in  rebellion  was  to  substitute 
county  committees  for  vestries,  so  that  the  whole 
posse  comitatus,  the  entire  power  of  the  county, 
might  be  centralized  and  wielded  by  one  authority. 
The  meeting  of  Fairfax  County  was  presided  over 
by  Colonel  Washington,  of  Mount  Vernon,  and 
adopted  a  declaration  of  the  right  of  the  people  of 
each  province  to  govern  themselves,  a  protest  against 
the  vindictive  treatment  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  rec 
ommendation  that  the  Continental  Congress  should 
forward  a  petition  and  remonstrance  to  the  king,  and 
pray  him  to  reflect  "  that  from  the  king  there  was 
but  one  appeal." 

No   gentleman    of  Washington's   position  in  the 


THE    PLANTER'S   LIFE   AND   MARRIAGE.       77 

community  could  afford  to  threaten  or  bluster.  The 
language  of  the  vestries  and  county  meetings  in 
Maryland  and  Virginia  was  calm,  clear,  and  positive. 
They  said  exactly  what  they  intended  to  say — no 
more,  no  less — "  From  the  king  but  one  appeal." 
What  was  that  ?  The  appeal  which  their  ancestors 
had  made  against  John,  against  Charles  I,  against 
James  II — an  appeal  to  the  God  of  battle ! 

That  was  the  alternative  presented  by  the  Eng 
lish  on  Chesapeake  to  the  British  beyond  sea — an  ad 
mission  of  the  right  to  govern  themselves  as  they  saw 
fit,  forever  and  forever,  or  war  !  Directly  after  the 
passage  of  the  Fairfax  resolutions,  Colonel  Washing 
ton  set  out  for  Williamsburg  to  attend  to  his  duties 
in  the  House  of  Burgesses. 

That  body  promptly  backed  the  county  meetings, 
called  a  Continental  Congress  to  meet  in  Philadel 
phia,  and  chose  six  delegates  to  it,  of  whom  Wash 
ington  was  one.  In  the  discussion  as  to  measures  to 
be  taken  for  the  support  of  Massachusetts  in  the 
position  she  had  taken,  and  the  relief  of  Boston 
from  the  attack  made  on  her  liberties  by  the  British, 
he  said  :  "  If  need  be,  I  will  raise  one  thousand  men, 
subsist  them  at  my  own  expense,  and  march  them  to 
the  relief  of  Boston." 

And  he  could  have  done  so  by  the  raising  of  his 
hand.  "  Rally  to  Colonel  Washington !  "  would  have 
been  the  slogan.  Up  the  Potomac  to  Fort  Cumber 
land,  across  the  mountains  to  Fort  Pitt,  down  the 
Ohio  to  the  Kanawha,  up  the  Kanawha  to  the  Gauley, 
the  word  would  have  passed  by  fleet  runners,  and  the 
hunters  under  Michael  Cresap  and  Mordecai  Gist 
would  have  flocked  to  him  over  the  Blue  Mountains, 
down  the  river  valleys,  up  from  tide  water  in  Mary- 


78  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

land  and  Virginia,  and  twenty  days  would  have  given 
him  more  than  one  thousand  men  such  as  General 
Morgan  afterward  led  at  Saratoga  or  Lord  Stirling 
at  Long  Island.  He  was  promptly  in  his  place  in 
Philadelphia  at  the  opening  of  Congress. 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE    BEGINNING    OF    THE    REVOLUTION. 

THE  failure  of  the  Americans  to  adequately  sup 
port  with  men  and  money  the  campaigns  against  the 
French  in  Canada  created  the  idea  at  home  that 
proper  means  should  be  taken  to  compel  them  to  do 
so.  It  was  decided  that  they  could  not  be  trusted 
to  raise  money  by  taxing  themselves  to  support  im 
perial  objects,  and  therefore  it  was  necessary  to  de 
vise  methods  by  which  they  could  be  made  to  do 
their  duty  to  the  empire.  The  method  proposed 
was  by  imperial  taxation,  imposed  by  the  imperial 
Parliament. 

In  the  Parliament  America  was  not  represented, 
and  it  was  perhaps  impracticable  to  grant  the  pro 
vincials  representation  there.  Such  a  measure  was 
suggested,  considered,  and  rejected.  The  plainest, 
simplest  form  of  taxation,  and  one  which  was  fa 
miliar  to  the  English,  was  to  require  all  legal  pro 
cess,  papers,  conveyances,  and  wills  to  be  written  on 
stamped  paper  which  was  supplied  by  the  Govern 
ment.  This  form  of  taxation  does  not  incommode 
the  great  body  of  the  people,  but  touches  mainly 
the  class  which  deals  with  purchase  and  sale,  with 
exchange,  with  transactions  in  money,  and  with  the 
business  of  the  people.  But,  like  all  taxation,  it  dis 
tributes  itself  through  the  entire  community,  and 


80  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

falls  equally  on  all  property  and  on  every  class.  It 
had  been  in  force  in  England  for  generations,  and 
was  acquiesced  in  as  just,  equal,  and  convenient. 

The  idea  of  a  central  government  for  the  New 
England  in  America  had  been  conceived  and  dis 
cussed  by  statesmen  on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic 
long  before  the  pressure  of  New  France  brought 
the  question  of  continental  union  up  for  decision. 
As  far  back  as  1701,  Robert  Livingston,  of  New 
York,  had  suggested  that  all  the  colonies  should  be 
united  under  one  government;  and,  in  1752,  Lieu 
tenant-Governor  Dinwiddie,  of  Virginia,  urged  upon 
the  Lords  of  Trade  the  establishment  of  two  separate 
confederacies  in  the  North  and  South.  It  was  agreed 
on  all  hands  that  concentration  of  the  resources  of 
all  the  colonies  was  necessary  for  the  common  de 
fense;  but  it  was  with  equal  unanimity  that  each 
colony  claimed  the  sole  right  to  regulate  all  of  its 
internal  affairs. 

In  1754  the  impending  war  with  France  brought 
this  question  to  a  decision,  and  several  of  the  royal 
governors,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  Earl  of 
Holdernesse,  Secretary  of  State,  called  a  congress  of 
all  the  colonies  to  be  held  at  Albany.  The  object 
was  to  secure  co-operation  of  the  colonies  against  the 
French  and  the  alliance  of  the  Indian  tribes,  and 
thus  divide  the  hereditary  enemies  of  the  English  in 
America,  and  also  to  prepare  and  propose  for  adop 
tion  some  plan  of  confederation  which  would  be  ac 
cepted  by  all  the  colonies.  Only  seven  out  of  the 
thirteen  sent  delegates — New  Hampshire,  Massa 
chusetts,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Maryland. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1754,  this  congress  adopted 


THE    BEGINNING   OF   THE   REVOLUTION,      gl 

a  plan  of  union  proposed  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  a 
deputy  from  Pennsylvania.  This  plan  provided 
that  a  Federal  Grand  Council  should  meet  every 
year  at  Philadelphia,  to  be  composed  of  "  members  " 
from  each  colony,  proportioned  to  its  military 
strength,  which  was  to  elect  its  own  officers.  The 
Grand  Council  was  to  be  elected  by  the  General 
Assembly  of  each  colony  selecting  "  members  of 
the  Council  "  to  which  the  colony  was  entitled.  The 
plan  is  particular  to  designate  them  k<  members  of 
the  Council,"  and  nowhere  "  representatives,  dele 
gates,  or  deputies,"  so  carefully  was  it  guarded  from 
possible  inference  from  designations  or  words. 
After  the  first  term,  "  members  "  were  to  be  selected 
for  three  years,  proportioned  to  taxes  paid  into  the 
common  fund. 

The  government  was  to  be  administered  by  a 
president-general  to  be  appointed  by  the  Crown,  who 
was  to  appoint  all  military  officers  subject  to  the 
confirmation  of  the  Grand  Council  and  to  have  a 
veto  on  its  acts.  The  Grand  Council  was  to  have 
entire  control  over  the  questions  of  peace  and  war, 
defense  against  and  trade  with  the  Indians.  As  to 
Continental  matters,  it  could  raise  armies  and  im 
pose  taxes.  The  plan  utterly  failed,  and  was  no 
where  received  with  favor,  except  by  Governor  Shir 
ley,  of  Massachusetts.  Neither  to  the  provincial 
nor  to  the  home  government  was  it  acceptable.  But 
notwithstanding  this  futile  attempt  at  union  the  fact 
was  as  imperative  as  ever. 

The  French  in  Canada  barely  exceeded  fifty  thou 
sand  souls — men,  women,  and  children  ;  the  English 
on  the  Atlantic  numbered  nearly  eleven  hundred 
thousand  ;  but  the  French,  scattered  over  a  wide 

" 


82  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

territory,  were  controlled  by  one  will  and  wielded  by 
one  arm — a  governor,  always  a  soldier ;  while  the 
English  were  divided  into  thirteen  separate  govern 
ments,  each  independent  of  all  the  rest,  and  only 
connected  by  the  ties  of  common  blood,  laws,  race, 
and  language.  Thus  the  first  movement  for  a  Con 
tinental  union  for  defense  against  the  Indians  and 
Roman  Catholics  failed ;  but  the  germ  of  the  move 
ment  was  planted,  and  as  soon  as  necessity  arose 
for  united  action,  co-operation  was  had. 

When  the  Stamp  Act  was  passed,  in  1765,  Massa 
chusetts  promptly  called  a  Congress  to  meet  at  New 
York,  the  headquarters  of  the  British  army  in  Amer 
ica.  There  the  deputies  from  nine  colonies  out  of 
the  thirteen  met,  each  colony  having  an  equal  vote. 
They  were  from  Massachusetts,  South  Carolina, 
Pennsylvania,  Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Delaware, 
Maryland,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York.  The  Gov 
ernor  of  Virginia  prevented  that  province  from  being 
represented  by  refusing  to  convoke  the  General  As 
sembly,  and  by  executive  influence  New  Hampshire, 
North  Carolina,  and  Georgia  were  also  unrepresent 
ed.  But  the  people  everywhere  were  in  full  accord 
with  the  sentiment  of  resistance  to  the  illegal  act  of 
government. 

This  Congress,  under  the  lead  of  Christopher 
Gadsden,  of  South  Carolina,  asserted  in  moderate  but 
positive  terms  that  the  English  in  America  were  en 
titled  to  all  the  essential  and  common  rights  of  Eng 
lishmen  at  home.  "  We  should  stand,"  said  Gads- 
den,  "  upon  the  broad  common  ground  of  those  natu 
ral  rights  that  we  all  know  and  feel  as  men,  and  as 
the  descendants  of  Englishmen." 

This  was   the   keynote,  this   the  general  feeling 


THE    BEGINNING   OF   THE   REVOLUTION.      83 

through  all  the  colonies,  "  that  we  are  Englishmen," 
and  entitled  to  equal  rights  with  Englishmen  at 
home,  greatest  and  chiefest  of  which  was  the  right  to 
enforce,  obtain,  and  defend  those  rights,  with  arms, 
at  the  expense  of  life,  blood,  and  fortune.  The  pure- 
blooded  race  of  English  in  New  England  and  on  the 
Chesapeake  were  unanimous  for  resistance  in  arms. 
The  mixed  population  of  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
and  Pennsylvania  were  neither  unanimous  nor  deter 
mined  on  such  a  course.  In  North  Carolina  the 
English  were  for  resistance,  and  the  Scotch  High 
landers,  the  representatives  of  the  Jacobite  feeling, 
many  of  whom  were  fugitives  from  Culloden,  were 
zealous  in  the  support  of  the  House  of  Hanover,  for 
the  overthrow  of  which  they  had  given  fortune, 
blood,  and  native  land.  But  they  held  themselves 
bound  by  their  parol  and  their  oath  of  allegiance, 
and  the  bloodiest  conflicts  of  the  Revolution  were  to 
take  place  between  the  friends  and  kinsmen  of  Flora 
McDonald  in  North  Carolina,  where  she  lived,  and  the 
descendants  of  the  English  who  fought  them  or  their 
ancestors  in  1715  and  1745.  The  Irish  everywhere 
were  prompt  for  rebellion,  and  the  Roman  Catholics, 
principal  of  whom  were  the  great  landholders  and 
leaders  of  Maryland,  were  firm  in  defense  of  their 
rights  as  Englishmen. 

There  has  never  been  a  day  in  which  the  English 
Roman  Catholic  has  not  been  clear  in  claiming 
hereditary  rights  and  courageous  in  defending  them. 
Whether  under  Lord  Howard  of  ErBngham,  against 
Medina-Sidonia,  and  Guise,  and  the  Grand  Armada, 
or  against  the  Scotch  irruptions  under  the  Stuarts, 
or  against  threats  of  invasion  by  Napoleon,  when 
ever  and  wherever  the  rights  of  Englishmen  have 
7 


84  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

been  threatened  or  the  integrity  of  the  realm  en 
dangered,  the  English  Roman  Catholics  have  been 
foremost  in  defense  of  them. 

The  ultimate  consequences  of  the  Braddock  cam 
paign,  therefore,  were  to  relieve  the  colonies  from  the 
pressure  of  threats  of  invasion  from  the  French  in 
the  North  and  the  Spaniard  in  the  South,  and  to  im 
pel  them  toward  Continental  union  to  defend  them 
selves  from  the  inroads  of  the  Indians  from  the 
West  and  the  English  from  the  East. 

The  rebellion  of  1775,  the  Revolution  of  i776-'8i, 
were  the  logical  consequences  of  Braddock's  defeat, 
which  made  the  conquest  of  Canada,  or  the  loss  of 
North  America,  the  sole  alternatives  to  the  English 
nation,  and  which  produced  the  supreme  effort  which 
resulted  in  the  subjection  of  the  continent  to  the 
English,  and,  as  a  consequence  of  that,  the  independ 
ence  of  the  English  in  America,  of  the  English  be 
yond  sea. 

It  was  just  and  proper  that  the  English  in  Amer 
ica  should  provide  means  and  men  for  their  own  de 
fense.  They  had  done  so  from  the  first  settlement, 
raising  and  subsisting  their  own  troops  ;  but  they  had 
done  so  by  their  own  legislatures,  themselves  being 
judges  of  what  was  necessary  and  proper  to  be  done. 
The  taxing  power  was  retained  in  their  own  hands. 
When,  therefore,  the  British  ministry  proposed  in 
Parliament  to  raise  funds  for  the  common  defense 
by  imposing  a  stamp  tax  on  the  colonies,  the  propo 
sition  was  met  by  indignant  protest  all  the  way  from 
Boston  to  Savannah. 

Washington,  at  Mount  Vernon,  engaged  in  the 
supervision  of  his  plantation,  his  family,  and  his 
servants,  was  deeply  impressed  with  the  prodigious 


THE   BEGINNING  OF   THE   REVOLUTION.      g$ 

importance  of  the  proposition.  His  neighbor, 
George  Mason,  of  Gunston  Hall,  the  profoundest 
political  thinker  of  his  generation  in  Virginia,  thor 
oughly  informed  as  to  history,  and  especially  the  his 
tory  of  the  English  race  and  its  reiterated  struggle 
in  arms  against  unrestrained  absolute  power  of  gov 
ernment,  thoroughly  sympathized  with  him. 

He  demonstrated  to  the  self-contained  soldier- 
planter  the  inevitable  consequences  of  yielding  to 
the  first  encroachment  of  power  on  liberty,  and  that 
only  two  courses  were  possible — prompt  and  early  re 
sistance  or  abject  submission.  And  he  foresaw  that 
resistance  meant  separation.  Freed  from  the  threat 
of  the  French  and  the  Spaniard,  abundantly  able  to 
deal  with  the  Indian,  he  knew  that  when  once  the 
issue  was  joined  the  provincials  would  promptly  vin 
dicate  their  ability  to  meet  the  British  regulars  in 
the  field,  and  the  colonies  their  capacity  for  govern 
ing  themselves,  and  that  thereafter  it  would  be  im 
possible  to  reconcile  them  to  subordination  to  the 
British  Parliament. 

Washington  was,  before  everything,  a  Virginian ; 
but  he  was  an  Englishman  as  well.  The  Braddock 
campaign  had  emancipated  him  from  that  provincial 
ism  which  exaggerated  all  the  high  characteristics  of 
the  home  people,  and  he  appreciated  them  at  their 
fair  value.  He  considered  the  Virginian  Englishman 
the  equal  in  every  way  of  the  Briton  at  home.  The 
Stamp  Act,  therefore,  shocked  him,  and  the  repeal  of 
the  law,  with  the  reservation  of  the  power  and  right 
of  Parliament  to  tax  the  American  colonists,  filled 
him  with  gloomy  forebodings. 

He  did  not  want  a  separation  from  friends  and 
kindred  at  home.  He  was  not  in  favor  of  secession, 


86  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

and  it  was  not  until  flagrant  war  demanded  all  the 
assistance  that  could  be  brought  to  support  it  that 
he  consented  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
He  was  a  member  of  the  House  of  Burgesses  of 
Virginia,  from  which,  under  the  lead  of  Patrick 
Henry,  came  the  first  defiance  of  the  British  Parlia 
ment  and  the  first  assertion  of  the  principle  on  which 
resistance  to  it  was  to  rest.  "  The  taxation  of  the 
people  by  themselves,  or  by  persons  chosen  to  repre 
sent  them,  ...  is  the  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
British  freedom,  without  which  the  Constitution  can 
not  exist,"  was  the  declaration  of  Henry's  resolutions 
passed  by  the  House.  They  further  declared  that 
any  attempt  to  vest  the  power  of  taxation  in  any 
other  body  than  the  Colonial  Assembly  was  a  menace 
to  British  no  less  than  to  American  freedom;  that 
the  people  of  Virginia  were  not  bound  to  obey  any 
law  enacted  in  disregard  of  these  fundamental  princi 
ples  ;  and  that  any  one  who  should  maintain  the  con 
trary  should  be  regarded  as  a  public  enemy. 

But,  looking  back  over  the  century  and  a  quarter 
that  has  intervened,  it  is  still  impossible  to  under 
stand  the  utter  fatuity  which  controlled  the  British 
Cabinet  in  the  twenty  years  that  passed  before  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Deep  down  imbedded 
in  the  heart  of  the  race,  from  its  emigration  from 
Germany  to  the  British  Isle,  was  a  conviction  that 
no  man  should  be  deprived  of  life,  liberty,  or  prop 
erty  except  by  the  judgment  of  his  peers  and  the 
law  of  the  land.  His  peers  were  his  neighbors  im 
paneled  into  a  jury  of  twelve  men,  who,  sitting  in 
judgment,  administered  justice  in  the  light  of  his 
life,  his  character,  and  his  career,  more  or  less  known 
to  them. 


THE   BEGINNING  OF   THE   REVOLUTION,      g/ 

In  the  reign  of  Charles  II  a  law  had  been  passed 
to  enforce  revenue  laws — that  when  smuggled  goods 
were  suspected  to  be  concealed  in  any  house,  a 
writ  of  assistance  might  be  issued  from  the  ad 
miralty,  commanding  the  marshal  to  search  all  sus 
pected  places  and  seize  all  suspected  goods  and  ar 
rest  all  suspected  persons,  and,  if  necessary,  to  sum 
mon  to  his  assistance  such  force  as  might  be  in  his 
judgment  necessary.  An  act  of  William  III  granted 
to  revenue  officers  in  America  all  the  powers  they 
were  entitled  to  in  England.  In  addition,  an  act  was 
passed  to  preserve  timber  for  the  royal  navy,  and 
many  trees  were  blazed  and  marked  with  the  broad 
arrow  in  the  forests  of  Maine,  the  two  Carolinas, 
and  Georgia,  and  thus  dedicated  to  the  use  of  the 
navy.  Any  trespass  on  this  royal  preserve  was  pun 
ished  in  the  admiralty  by  stripes,  fine,  and  impris 
onment. 

By  the  Statute  of  Treasons  of  Henry  VIII,  all 
treasons  committed  anywhere  under  the  British  do 
minion  were  triable  in  England.  On  the  charge  that 
American  juries  could  not  be  relied  .on  to  convict 
their  fellow-subjects  for  violation  of  revenue  laws, 
the  old  statutes  of  Henry  VIII  and  Charles  II  were 
revived  to  secure  convictions  and  deprive  them  of 
trial  by  jury.  All  ordinary  offenses  against  the  rev 
enue  laws  were  triable  by  one  judge,  without  a  jury, 
in  admiralty.  All  extraordinary  offenders  were  to 
be  deported  to  England  and  tried  by  a  jury,  when 
conviction  was  sure.  Thus  the  right  to  tax  them 
selves,  and  the  right  to  trial  by  a  jury  of  their  neigh 
bors,  were  alike  denied  by  the  British  Government  to 
the  provincials.  The  writ  of  assistance  authorized 
the  marshal  to  search  every  suspected  place  for  proof 


88  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

of  suspected  crime.  It  laid  every  house  open  to  the 
menials  of  the  admiralty.  His  house  was  no  longer 
a  man's  castle,  but  was  open  on  demand  to  any  offi 
cer  of  the  Admiralty  Court. 

The  attempt  to  extend  the  admiralty  jurisdiction, 
and  thus  deprive  freeborn  Englishmen  of  their 
hereditary  right  of  trial  by  jury,  the  assertion  of  the 
power  of  the  writs  of  assistance,  which  were  general 
warrants  authorized  to  search  all  suspected  places, 
seize  all  suspected  goods,  and  arrest  all  suspected 
persons,  roused  the  people  like  a  fire-bell  by  night, 
and  the  coast,  from  Maine  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
blazed  with  bonfires  burning  in  effigy  the  obnoxious 
admiralty  judges  and  minions  who  sought  to  perpe 
trate  this  outrage  on  the  freeborn. 

The  controversy  between  the  common  law  and 
the  admiralty  courts  had  raged  in  England  from 
the  time  when  the  Count  of  the  Saxon  shore  was 
necessarily  vested  with  authority  to  call  out  all  the 
power  of  the  sea  and  land  to  resist  invasion  by 
Saxon,  or  Dane,  or  Norseman  ;  and  only  as  the  power 
of  the  central  government  of  king,  lords,  and 
commons  was  crystallized  into  regular  forms  and 
developed  into  governing  force  to  establish  security 
for  home,  life,  and  property,  were  the  King's  courts 
of  sufficient  authority  to  protect  the  King's  subjects 
against  the  usurpations  and  aggressions  of  the  ad 
miralty  ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  time  of  Lord  Coke 
that  his  rugged  English  brain  and  courage  estab 
lished  on  immutable  foundations  the  principle  that 
the  jurisdiction  of  the  admiralty  was  bounded  by  the 
tide,  and  controlled  only  the  doings  of  men  on  the 
great  deep. 

So  deeply  seated  is  this  desire  of  power  to  ex- 


THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE    REVOLUTION.       89 

tend  itself  on  the  one  side,  and  the  desire  of  the 
freeborn  to  resist  usurpation  on  the  other,  that  the 
struggle  between  the  admiralty  and  the  common 
right  has  been  continued  from  the  colonies  to  the 
States,  until  the  fourth  generation  after  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  has  not  been  able  sufficiently 
to  check  or  bridle  the  admiralty  jurisdiction  within 
the  limits  established  by  Lord  Coke. 

The  use  of  stamps  was  so  universally  repudiated, 
the  law  requiring  the  use  of  them  so  generally  ig 
nored,  that  they  passed  out  of  existence  and  made 
no  sign.  The  stamp  officers  everywhere  were  forced 
to  resign  their  offices,  and  the  stamps  were  burnt  or 
reshipped  home.  The  stamp  officer  for  Annapolis 
in  Maryland  escaped  to  New  York,  where,  under  the 
guns  of  the  British  fleet  and  the  protection  of  the 
British  army,  he  hoped  to  live  in  peace.  But  the 
irate  Marylanders  pursued  him  there,  and  a  com 
mittee  from  Annapolis  forced  him,  at  the  point  of 
the  sword,  to  resign  his  place.  The  courts  of  Mary 
land  required  public  and  private  business  to  be  tran 
sacted  without  stamps,  and  the  bar  of  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  unanimously  signed  an  application 
to  the  court  that  the  law  should  be  ignored  in  that 
jurisdiction,  because  it  was  manifestly  contrary  to 
the  fundamental  rights  of  Englishmen. 

The  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  amounted  to  noth 
ing.  It  reasserted  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax 
the  colonies,  and  while  experience  had  just  proved 
that  this  right  of  taxation  would  never  produce  rev 
enue,  for  it  could  not  be  enforced,  the  insistence  on 
this  theoretical  right  gave  grave  offense  to  the  Eng 
lish  in  America.  It  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  race 
that  they  feel  ideas  like  facts,  and  the  assertion  of 


90  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

an  obnoxious  principle  is  with  them  as  bad  as  the 
enforcement  of  it. 

The  levy  of  a  few  shillings  ship-money  on  John 
Hampden  did  not  inconvenience  him,  nor  did  it 
threaten  his  neighbors,  but  the  assertion  of  the  right 
to  take  his  property  without  his  consent  implied  the 
right  to  take  the  property  of  any  man  for  any  pur 
pose,  and  thus  no  man's  home  was  safe,  and  he  held 
everything  at  the  pleasure  of  the  King.  On  that 
issue  the  English  took  arms,  overthrew  a  dynasty, 
and  after  many  battles  on  many  bloody  fields  have 
established  a  government  where  security  for  life,  lib 
erty,  and  property  has  never  been  exceeded  in  the 
history  of  the  world. 

In  1761  the  revenue  officer  of  Boston  applied  to 
Chief-Justice  Hutchinson  for  a  writ  of  assistance — 
that  is,  a  general  warrant  to  search  all  suspected 
places  for  all  suspected  goods  and  persons,  specifying 
none  of  them.  James  Otis  appeared  before  the  court 
as  counsel  for  the  people,  and  with  fiery  eloquence 
demonstrated  that  general  warrants  were  contrary 
to  the  Constitution,  and  that  no  one  was  bound  to 
respect  them.  He  did  not  point  out  the  logical  con 
sequence — the  common  sense  of  the  people  did  that 
— that  no  man  could  interfere  with  any  other  man's 
rights  of  person  or  property  without  the  authority 
of  the  law,  and  that  whoever  did  so,  without  legal 
warrant,  was  a  trespasser,  and  might  legally  be  re 
sisted  by  force. 

If  a  private  trespass  might  thus  be  met  by  force — 
and  that  has  been  a  maxim  of  the  common  law  from 
the  time  "beyond  which  the  memory  of  man  run 
neth  not " — so  much  the  more  was  it  the  duty  of 
the  loyal  subject  as  of  the  free  citizen  to  take 


THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   REVOLUTION.      gi 

arms  to  resist  trespass  on  the  common  right,  the 
right  of  all  men  to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness.  The  British  Administration  withdrew  the 
stamp  tax.  It  cost  more  to  collect  it  than  it  could 
be  made  to  yield,  but  it  put  in  a  "  continual  claim  " 
of  the  right  to  tax  the  provincials,  and  arranged  to 
enforce  the  regulations  of  trade  more  rigorously. 

Under  the  British  navigation  acts — remnant  of 
the  Commonwealth  and  of  Cromwell's  policy — all 
trade  with  the  colonies  was  required  to  be  carried 
on  through  home  ports  in  British  bottoms.  Thus 
sugar  from  Jamaica  to  Maryland  must  first  be 
shipped  to  Bristol  or  London  or  Portsmouth  in  Brit 
ish  ships,  and  thence  to  the  James  River  or  the  Po 
tomac.  It  was  this  violation  of  the  natural  laws  of 
trade  that  forced  the  traders  of  New  England,  who 
flew  as  free  and  fearless  sails  as  any  Viking  under 
the  raven  flag,  to  defy  the  law  and  run  sugar  into 
home  ports. 

But,  as  population  increased  in  the  intervening 
century,  the  navigation  acts  operated  in  unforeseen 
ways,  and  imposed  unheard-of  burdens  on  the  people. 
In  York,  Pennsylvania,  there  was  a  manufactory  of 
beaver  hats,  which  were  needed  in  Maryland.  They 
could  not  be  wagoned  to  Baltimore,  forty  miles  off, 
because  direct  trade  between  the  colonies  was  for 
bidden.  The  Virginians  on  the  Rappahannock  pro 
duced  a  high  quality  of  pig  iron,  which  was  needed 
in  Baltimore  and  elsewhere,  to  be  manufactured  into 
plows,  axes,  and  hoes.  But  the  same  law  prevented 
the  direct  trade.  And,  ten  thousand  times  worse, 
from  the  minute  either  hats  or  iron  started  on  their 
roundabout  journey  to  the  consumer,  they  became 
subject  to  admiralty  law  and  were  deprived  of  the 


Q2  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

right  to  a  trial  by  jury.  A  dozen  hats  smuggled 
across  the  border  rendered  every  house  liable  to 
search,  every  box  to  seizure,  and  every  person  to 
arrest.  Every  province  was  surrounded  by  an  iron 
wall  of  protection ;  interstate  trade  was  absolutely 
prohibited,  and  the  interchange  of  products  among 
neighbors  was  forbidden. 

Under  natural  conditions,  the  great  fisheries  of 
the  Chesapeake  would  have  been  the  source  of  untold 
prosperity  to  their  possessors  and  their  neighbors. 
Their  rich  yield  could  have  been  exchanged  for  the 
hats,  cloths,  leather,  and  industrial  products  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  both  sides  made  a  profit  and  pros 
pered.  But  the  British  intellect  is  incapable  of  tak 
ing  in  the  idea  of  the  equality  of  other  men. 

Though  the  provincials  were  in  the  main  of  their 
own  blood,  they  never  did  understand,  never  could 
appreciate,  the  fact  that  societies  are  born,  grow, 
develop,  and  arrive  at  maturity  precisely  as  men  do, 
and,  as  men  require  different  treatment  from  boys,  so 
mature  provinces  occupy  different  positions  in  the 
world  from  infant  colonies.  It  is  this  incapacity 
that  is  now  risking  the  British  hold  on  her  colonies, 
and  which  will  certainly  lose  her  Canada  and  Aus 
tralasia,  unless  she  recognizes  them  as  her  equals  and 
associates  with  them  on  terms  of  equal  rights. 

The  pretensions  of  the  admiralty  were  steadily 
resisted.  James  Otis's  attack  on  general  search 
warrants,  or  writs  of  assistance,  was  followed  up  in 
every  other  colony  except  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey, 
and  New  York.  Perhaps  the  inducements  of  trade 
were  more  dominating  in  those  colonies,  and  peace 
and  thrift  were  preferred  to  the  tempestuous  struggle 
of  civil  war  for  the  preservation  of  hereditary  rights. 


THE   BEGINNING   OF    THE   REVOLUTION. 


93 


During  the  discussions  about  the  stamp  tax,  the 
provincial  governors  had  represented  to  the  Lords 
of  Trade  that,  while  the  Americans  would  resist 
every  attempt  at  direct  taxation,  they  would  be 
satisfied  with  indirect  contributions  to  the  imperial 
treasury  for  the  common  defense,  raised  by  means  of 
regulations  of  trade — tariff  taxes,  as  we  now  under 
stand  them.  Accordingly,  the  Administration,  under 
the  lead  of  Charles  Townsend,  Chancellor  of  the  Ex 
chequer,  imposed  a  tax  on  glass,  paper,  lead,  paints, 
colors,  and  tea,  imported  into  the  colonies.  This 
act  was  to  be  enforced  by  a  board  of  revenue  com 
missioners  for  the  whole  country,  to  sit  at  Boston,  and 
general  writs  of  assistance  were  expressly  authorized. 
That  is,  that  a  board  at  Boston  was  to  issue  a  gen 
eral  warrant  to  search  all  houses  in  Maryland,  to 
seize  all  property,  and  to  arrest  all  persons  that  the 
revenue  collector  for  the  district  chose  to  search, 
seize,  and  arrest. 

The  King  was  to  appoint  governors  and  judges 
and  create  a  general  civil  list,  and  grant  pensions  in 
every  colony,  all  of  which  were  to  be  paid  out  of 
the  fund  raised  by  tariff  taxation ;  that  is,  that  the 
people  were  to  be  deprived  of  all  influence  over 
their  executive  and  judicial  officers,  as  their  legis 
latures  were  superseded  by  the  imperial  Parliament, 
and  they  were  to  be  delivered  into  the  hands  of  the 
Crown,  with  life,  liberty,  and  property  absolutely  at 
its  disposal,  utterly  stripped  of  their  right  of  trial  by 
jury. 

No  such  scheme  of  absolutism  was  ever  applied 
to  people  of  English  blood  before.  Not  Strafford,  in 
his  wildest  dreams  of  "  thorough,"  ever  imagined 
such  a  plan  of  subjugating  a  freeborn  people  to 


94  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

absolute  authority.  The  tariff  on  imports  was 
promptly  met  by  the  colonists  by  agreements  among 
themselves  not  to  import  anything  from  home,  or  pur 
chase  or  use  anything  imported.  The  Townsend 
Tariff  Act  was  passed  in  1767,  but  so  fierce  was  the 
opposition  to  it,  that  in  1769  Parliament  repealed  all 
except  the  duty  on  tea. 

Tea  was  probably  selected  because  a  tax  on  it 
would  be  the  least  annoying,  and  would  touch  fewer 
people  than  any  other  tax  whatever.  The  retention 
of  it  would  assert  the  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the 
colonies.  The  tax  would  not  produce  over  three 
hundred  pounds ;  and  as  tea  was  unknown  to  the 
great  mass  of  the  people,  and  used  only  by  the  few 
rich  and  traveled  families,  it  was  supposed  that  a 
tax  on  it  would  pass  unnoticed,  and  the  principle  as 
serted  be  universally  acquiesced  in  because  it  in 
convenienced  nobody.  So  little  was  the  use  of  tea 
known,  that  tradition  says  that  a  gentleman  in  Vir 
ginia  gave  his  overseer  a  pound  of  tea  as  a  present 
to  his  wife,  who,  thinking  it  was  some  new-fashioned 
"greens,"  promptly  boiled  the  whole  of  it  in  a  pot 
with  a  big  ham ! 

At  this  period  few  people  anywhere  meditated  se 
cession,  and  independence  of  the  home  government. 
It  was  dimly  crystallizing  in  the  mind  of  Patrick 
Henry,  but  without  definite  form.  Samuel  Adams, 
of  Massachusetts,  claimed  that  from  the  passage  of 
the  Declaratory  Act  asserting  the  omnipotence  of 
Parliament,  he  became  fixed  in  purpose  and  clear 
in  intention  to  produce  a  complete  separation,  as  the 
only  defense  from  the  constant  intermeddling  of  the 
mother  country  with  the  affairs  and  domestic  rights 
of  the  provincials.  But  George  Mason,  George 


THE   BEGINNING  OF   THE   REVOLUTION.      95 

Washington,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  of  Virginia,  Thomas 
Johnson  and  Charles  Carroll,  of  Maryland,  Richard 
Caswell,  of  North  Carolina,  and  Christopher  Gads- 
den  and  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney,  of  South 
Carolina,  all  patriotic  Englishmen,  all  devoted  to  the 
traditions  and  the  institutions  of  u  home,"  the  birth 
place  and  grave  of  their  ancestors  for  generations, 
had  no  desire  for  separation,  and  certainly  no  inten 
tion  to  prepare  for  it. 

George  Mason  was  of  too  philosophic  a  mind  not 
to  understand  that  a  combination  by  people  to  resist 
law — law  enacted  with  all  the  guarantees,  securities, 
forms,  and  sanctions  ever  thrown  around  any  law — 
on  the  vague  ground  that  such  a  law  was  no  law, 
because  contrary  to  common  right  and  the  fundamen 
tal  principles  of  justice,  Mason  was  too  well  read  in 
history,  and  too  sagacious,  not  to  appreciate  that  the 
first  step  was  being  taken  to  arouse  resistance  to 
government ;  that  such  rebellion  was  very  different 
from  the  rebellion  against  Charles  I  and  the  Star 
Chamber,  and  that  against  James  II,  when  the  re 
sult  of  resistance  must  of  necessity  be  not  a  revolu 
tion  in  the  principles,  but  a  change  in  the  adminis 
trators,  of  government. 

The  combination  against  law,  beginning  with  the 
repudiation  of  the  Stamp  Act,  followed  by  the  non 
importation  agreement,  organized  in  provincial  con 
gresses,  could  only  result  in  absolute  defeat  and  sub 
jection  to  the  will  of  Great  Britain,  when  thje-jMhtQ^-^^ 
nies  would  be  governed  by  military  law  Applied  by 
soldiers,  as  the  Southern  States  were  while'  uttder  the 
reconstruction  governments,  or  in  complef-e  ^success, 
which  would  secure  the  colonies  absolute  control  of 
their  own  destinies,  and  this,  once  secured,  must  result 


96  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

in  independence,  for  the  victor  never  yet  has  submit 
ted  to  the  sway  of  the  vanquished. 

But  while  a  few  prophetic  and  enthusiastic  minds 
and  hearts,  aflame  with  the  divine  frenzy  of  pas 
sion,  of  sentiment,  of  devotion  to  high  ideals,  felt 
that  the  issue  was  between  subjugation  and  slavery 
or  liberty  and  independence,  the  great  mass  of  the 
property  holders,  the  churchmen,  the  landholders* 
were  faithful  in  their  love  of  home  and  kin,  and 
had  not  the  remotest  idea  that  they  were  being  led 
in  the  path  of  a  separation,  to  be  achieved  at  the  ex 
pense  of  so  many  tears  and  lives  and  so  much  blood 
and  property. 

The  tariff  on  tea,  therefore,  though  it  touched  no 
body  or  annoyed  any  one,  was  taken  by  the  leaders 
North  and  South  to  be  more  insidious  and  more 
dangerous  than  an  open  notorious  violation  of  com 
mon  right.  A  tax  levied  and  collected  by  the  King's 
tax-gatherer  from  door  to  door  would  have  aroused 
the  people  like  the  fiery  cross  of  Clan-Alpin,  and 
the  representative  of  the  royal  authority  would  have 
been  booted  from  the  mountains  to  the  sea.  But  in 
order  to  confuse  the  question  of  right,  the  import 
duty  paid  by  the  East  India  Company  on  tea  im 
ported  into  England  was  remitted  to  the  company 
on  tea  exported  to  America,  so  that  the  price  of  tea, 
with  Townsend's  tariff  on  it,  was  no  greater  than  be 
fore  it  was  imposed. 

Tea  was  made  the  test,  and  when,  in  the  fall  of 
1773,  vessels  loaded  with  tea  were  sent  to  Boston, 
New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Charleston,  prepara 
tions  were  made  to  prevent  the  landing  of  the  car 
goes.  At  Boston,  after  a  public  meeting  called  to  pre 
vent  the  landing  of  the  tea,  a  party  of  men,  disguised 


THE   BEGINNING  OF   THE    REVOLUTION.      97 

as  Indians,  at  night  threw  the  tea  overboard  in  the 
harbor.  At  Charleston  the  tea  was  landed,  but  com 
pelled  to  be  stored  in  damp  cellars,  where  it  was 
speedily  destroyed  by  mold. 

But  at  Annapolis  the  boldness  of  the  rebels  sur 
passed  all  experience.  On  the  arrival  of  the  ship  Peg 
gy  Stewart  in  that  port,  consigned  to  her  owner,  one 
Stewart,  a  Scotch  factor,  the  Whig  Club  of  Anne 
Arundel  County  were  convened  by  their  president, 
Dr.  Charles  Alexander  Warfield,  and  with  hatbands 
inscribed  "  Liberty  or  Death,"  they  rode  on  Annapolis, 
and  in  open  day  gave  Stewart  the  alternative  of  be 
ing  hung  before  his  own  door  or  of  firing  his  own 
ship  with  his  own  hand.  He  naturally  chose  the 
latter,  and  the  Peggy  Stewart  was  burned  at  her  wharf 
in  open  day,  by  the  direction  of  the  principal  people 
of  the  county,  without  disguise,  who  acted  openly, 
and  assumed  the  responsibility  for  their  acts. 

The  tax  on  tea  was,  therefore,  as  conspicuous  a 
failure  as  that  on  stamps  had  been,  and  it  was  aban 
doned.  But  Boston  was  required  to  pay  for  the  tea 
destroyed  by  her  mob,  and  did  pay  for  it.  A  de 
mand  for  payment  on  Maryland  would  have  met  with 
prompt  refusal.  Theirs  was  not  the  spirit  to  tempo 
rize,  nor  to  draw  back  from  a  position  deliberately  as 
sumed.  But  while  the  commercial  sense  of  Boston 
led  it  to  seek  to  obviate  the  consequences  of  the  acts 
of  its  people — extra-legal,  illegal,  or  rebellious — the 
body  of  the  people,  when  their  spirits  are  aroused, 
never  temporize.  On  any  question  of  right  or  honor, 
of  faith  or  trust,  the  mass  of  feeling,  in  the  mass  of 
free  people,  may  always  be  counted  on  as  being  on 
the  right  side,  as  they  understand  it. 

And  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  far  above 


98  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  traders  and  business  men  of  Boston  in  their 
standard  of  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  and  their  will 
ingness  to  make  sacrifice  of  property  to  maintain 
them,  and  their  unselfish  devotion  and  faith  in  the 
eternal  truth  and  life  of  them.  Boston  was  selected 
by  the  ministry  at  home  for  the  experimentum  in 
corpore  vili.  Her  port  was  closed  by  act  of  Parlia 
ment,  and  her  commerce  obliterated.  Major-General 
Gage,  who  had  commanded  the  Forty-fourth  Regi 
ment  as  Lieutenant  Colonel  in  Dunbar's  Brigade  of 
the  rear  guard  at  the  Battle  of  the  Monongahela,  was 
sent  to  restore  order  in  Boston  with  four  regiments 
of  regulars. 

The  provincial  authorities  would  make  no  pro 
vision  for  billeting  the  troops.  The  experience  of 
James  II  in  billeting  troops  on  the  people  in  time  of 
peace  was  too  recent  for  the  royal  governor  or  royal 
general  to  dare  to  billet  troops  on  Boston,  so  they 
lived  under  canvas  on  Boston  Common,  all  through 
a  Boston  winter.  The  unnecessary  hardships  to 
which  the  soldiers  were  exposed,  their  consequent 
rheumatism  and  pleurisy,  were  not  calculated  to 
beget  or  to  cultivate  good  feeling  between  citizens 
and  soldiers,  and  consequently  there  were  collisions, 
attacks  on  single  soldiers,  or  on  detached  parties  of 
them,  until  at  last,  in  an  affray  in  open  day,  the  sol 
diers  shot  down  several  citizens  who  were  leading 
the  mob  which  was  driving  them  into  their  quarters. 

This  was  called  "  the  Boston  Massacre."  Six 
men  lost  their  lives  in  it.  It  is  a  miracle  that  every 
red-coat  in  Boston  was  not  shot  down  that  night. 
There  were  plenty  of  old  soldiers  of  Louisburgh  and 
old  sailors  of  Marblehead  in  Boston,  and  they  could 
have  wiped  out  the  British  garrison  as  completely  as 


THE   BEGINNING   OF   THE   REVOLUTION. 


99 


that  other  British  garrison  was  wiped  out  at  Delhi. 
But  for  self-control  and  prudence  the  men  of  New 
England  are  unsurpassed.  Gage  arrested  the  officer 
and  his  detachment  who  fired  on  the  mob,  and  turned 
them  over  to  the  civil  authority  for  trial.  James  Otis 
and  John  Adams  defended  them,  and  they  were  ac 
quitted  on  the  plea  of  self-defense.  This  remarkable 
though  proper  verdict  may  perhaps  be  explained  on 
the  ground  of  a  healthy  respect  for  General  Gage's 
guns,  and  a  reasonable  doubt  whether  any  other 
verdict  would  have  been  carried  out. 

During  the  days  of  reconstruction,  while  Virginia 
was  Military  District  No.  i,  a  Federal  sentinel  shot 
and  killed  a  citizen  for  not  respecting  his  challenge 
on  post.  The  man  was  doubtless  amenable  to  the 
articles  of  war,  but  the  commanding  officer  preferred 
to  turn  him  over  to  the  civil  courts  for  trial  and  pun 
ishment.  He  was  defended  by  an  ex-Confederate  offi 
cer.  The  Hustings  court  of  the  city  of  Richmond 
promptly  acquitted  him,  on  the  ground  that  as  a  sol 
dier  he  was  bound  to  obey  orders,  and  that  the  offi 
cer  who  gave  the  order  was  responsible,  if  anybody 
was ;  and,  further,  that  the  officer  of  the  guard  was 
not  subject  to  civil  jurisdiction  during  the  military 
occupation  of  a  conquered  territory.  So  the  cool 
ness  and  judgment  of  the  Boston  jury  may  have 
been  tempered  by  some  like  considerations  to  those 
which  controlled  the  Virginia  court. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS — NEW   ENGLAND  IN 
THE  WAR. 

ON  September  4,  1774,  the  first  Continental  Con 
gress  assembled  at  Philadelphia.  Eleven  colonies 
were  there,  North  Carolina  delegates  not  arriving  un 
til  the  i6th,  and  Georgia  was  not  represented  at  all. 
Peyton  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  was  chosen  president, 
and  their  first  resolution  was  to  reassert  and  indorse  the 
Massachusetts  declaration  that  a  king  who  violates 
the  chartered  rights  of  his  people  forfeits  their  al 
legiance  ;  that  an  act  of  Parliament  contrary  to  the 
common  right  was  void,  and  ought  to  be  disregarded. 
This  was  another  way  of  asserting  the  duty  of  the 
people  to  resist  invasion  of  their  rights  by  arms.  It 
was  the  first  act  of  nullification  in  America.  The 
Congress  agreed  upon  and  passed  a  declaration  of 
rights  which  claimed  for  each  colony  the  exclusive 
right  of  control  over  its  police,  its  taxation,  and  its 
expenditure,  echoing  the  sentiment  of  the  Fairfax 
resolves,  and  sent  out  addresses  to  the  King,  to  the 
people  of  Great  Britain,  and  to  the  other  British 
colonies  in  America. 

With  the  English  race  the  appeal  to  reason  has 
always  preceded  the  appeal  to  force,  but  time  and 
again  in  its  history,  resolves,  remonstrances,  and 
declarations  have  been  backed  by  the  sword  in 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  ioi 

manly  hands.  There  was  not  unanimity  in  the  desire 
for  the  accession  of  the  Canadas,  for  twenty  genera 
tions  of  struggle  with  the  Roman  Catholic  and  the 
Frenchman  at  home  or  in  America  had  left  feelings 
not  to  be  obliterated  at  once. 

But  the  desire  for  the  purely  English  colonies  of 
the  Bermudas  was  strong,  and  it  was  not  until  long 
after,  when  experience  had  demonstrated  that  con 
trol  of  the  sea  guaranteed  possession  of  the  islands 
to  Great  Britain,  that  the  statesmen  of  the  Continent 
gave  up  all  hopes  of  their  joining  the  Confederacy. 
In  fact,  the  address  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain 
enumerated  as  one  of  the  grievances  for  repair  of 
which  they  appealed  to  their  fellow-subjects  at 
home,  that  the  Quebec  Act,  regulating  the  govern 
ment  of  Canada,  guaranteed  security  to  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  its  priests  and  property,  and  pro 
tected  them  in  the  free  exercise  of  their  religion. 
Of  course,  when  the  Congress  afterward  sent  com 
missioners  to  Canada  to  solicit  co-operation  and 
union,  with  John  Carroll,  Provincial  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus  in  North  America,  at  their  head,  the  com 
missioners  were  met  by  the  solid  opposition  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  clergy  and  laity,  and  made 
an  utter  failure. 

Nothing  further  was  done,  but  this  meeting  still 
further  mingled  the  spirits  of  the  different  colonies 
into  a  medium  which  prepared  crystallization.  The 
personal  association  between  John  Adams,  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  Patrick  Henry  and  Edmund  Randolph, 
of  Virginia,  Thomas  Johnson  and  Mathew  Tilgh- 
man,  of  Maryland,  and  Christopher  Gadsden,  of 
South  Carolina,  in  the  daily  intercourse  of  a  month 
gave  them  better  appreciation  of  the  personalities 


102  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

which  would  be  united  in  their  undertaking  of  re 
sistance,  than  correspondence  of  a  year  would  have 
afforded. 

By  the  written  word,  ideas  are  expressed  and  im 
parted  ;  by  the  spoken  language,  force,  intelligence, 
sympathy,  directness,  manliness,  are  understood,  and 
the  controlling  powers  of  life  lie  much  more  in  per 
sonal  qualities  than  in  intellectual  ones.  The  fac 
ulty  of  expression  lessens  the  power  of  force  of  will. 
No  great  orator  or  philosopher  ever  was  a  great 
soldier,  and  a  great  soldier  rarely  is  a  great  thinker. 
The  sphere  of  physical  action  and  intellectual  effort 
lie  in  different  planes.  These  are  unlikely  to  cross. 
When  they  do,  a  phenomenon  like  Moses,  or  Alex 
ander,  or  Napoleon  Bonaparte  is  produced. 

Leaders  of  revolutions  do  not  create  them.  They 
express  in  words,  or  in  action,  the  common  feeling, 
and  are  successful  just  in  proportion  as  they  faith 
fully,  accurately  express  the  emotions  which  stir  all 
hearts.  Samuel  Adams  may  have  foreseen  the  ne 
cessity  for  separation,  Patrick  Henry  may  have 
declared  the  duty  of  resistance  by  force,  but  neither 
created  the  idea  of  independence,  nor  originated 
that  of  revolution. 

The  sentiment  was  in  the  hearts  of  the  English 
in  America.  They  felt  that  they  had  grown  up ;  that 
they  were  men,  and  had  the  right  and  duty  to  control 
their  own  destinies,  and  the  logic  of  Nature  marched 
with  irresistible  and  inevitable  steps  to  resistance 
and  separation.  General  Gage  had  occupied  Boston 
and  sought  to  intimidate  Massachusetts  since  the 
previous  April,  1774,  when  he  had  been  appointed 
military  Governor  of  the  colony,  turned  into  a  mili 
tary  district,  just  as  Virginia  was  in  1867-1870. 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  103 

During  the  summer  the  colony  nullified  the  act 
of  Parliament  known  as  the  Regulating  Act,  which 
assumed  to  control  the  legislative  power  of  the  col 
ony  by  vesting  in  the  Governor  appointed  by  the 
Crown  the  power  to  appoint  councilors  to  the  Gov 
ernor,  to  hold  during  the  pleasure  of  the  appointing 
power  and  to  be  paid  by  it. 

Committees  of  correspondence  were  organized 
throughout  the  colony  and  with  all  other  colonies,  and 
careful  provision  of  gunpowder  and  lead  began  to 
be  made.  On  every  village  green  the  young  men 
and  boys  began  to  be  drilled  by  the  old  soldiers  of 
Pepperell,  Wolfe,  and  Prescott.  During  the  winter 
Washington  occupied  himself  in  arranging  his  affairs 
for  a  long  absence.  He  committed  the  Mount 
Vernon  estate  to  the  care  of  Battaille  Muse,  his  old 
adjutant  of  Fort  Necessity.  In  April,  1775,  he  at 
tended  the  second  Congress  at  Philadelphia. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  he  wore  to  the  sessions 
of  this  Congress  his  uniform  of  a  Virginia  colonel  of 
blue  and  buff,  as  significant  that  in  his  opinion  the 
time  for  action  had  arrived.  The  uniform  he  did 
wear  was  of  blue  coat  and  scarlet  waistcoat  and 
breeches,  as  proved  by  Peale's  portrait,  and  the  rea 
son  he  wore  it  is  probably  that  it  was  the  best  suit 
he  had.  It  had  been  made  by  a  London  tailor.  The 
Articles  of  Nonimportation  which  he  had  signed,  and 
of  which  he  was  a  conscientious  observer,  had  cut  off 
supplies  of  appropriate  dress  from  home,  and  the 
uniform  of  a  man's  rank  was  considered  the  dress 
suit  for  occasions  of  ceremony  in  the  society  to 
which  he  had  been  accustomed. 

The  military  preparations  in  Massachusetts  had 
occasioned  discussion  as  to  the  organization  of  a 


104  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Continental  army,  and  it  was  the  clearest  policy  to 
commit  Virginia  fully  and  completely  to  the  move 
ment  of  force.  Consultations  by  correspondence 
were  going  on  through  the  winter  between  the 
leaders  in  all  the  provinces  as  to  the  proper  per 
son  to  be  placed  in  command.  The  only  ones  who 
could  furnish  soldiers  of  experience  and  reputation 
for  command  were  Massachusetts  and  Virginia. 
While  Massachusetts  had  Ward  and  Prescott,  who 
had  served  against  the  French,  Virginia  had  Andrew 
Lewis  and  Washington. 

Lewis,  at  the  battle  of  Point  Pleasant,  with  Vir 
ginia  militia  alone — the  veteran  and  seasoned  rangers 
of  the  border — had  defeated  the  allied  forces  of  the 
Indians,  shattered  their  power,  and  driven  the  de 
moralized  fugitives  beyond  the  Ohio.  But  Thomas 
Johnson,  of  Maryland,  was  the  neighbor  and  friend 
of  Washington.  He  had  been  associated  with  him 
since  1762  in  the  Ohio  Company,  and  in  the  great 
enterprise  to  secure  a  free  water  way  from  the  head 
of  tide  on  the  Potomac,  where  Washington  now 
stands,  by  the  Potomac,  the  Monongahela,  the  Ohio, 
and  the  Wabash,  to  Lake  Erie.  Johnson,  better  than 
any  man  of  his  cotemporaries,  knew  the  broadness 
of  view,  the  grasp  of  mind,  the  tenacity  of  purpose, 
united  with  self-control,  concentration,  and  phys 
ical  fortitude  and  endurance  of  Colonel  Washing 
ton.  It  may  well  have  been,  as  John  Adams  claims, 
that  he  indicated  the  choice  of  Washington  as  com 
mander  in  chief  on  account  of  his  conspicuous  posi 
tion  and  the  considerations  of  policy.  Johnson, 
however,  took  the  initiative,  and  on  June  15,  1775, 
moved  in  the  Congress  that  that  body  assume  the 
responsibility  for  the  army  which  the  affair  of  Lex- 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  105 

ington  had  assembled  before  Boston,  and  that  Colo 
nel  George  Washington,  of  Virginia,  be  appointed  to 
the  command  in  chief. 

Johnson  says  that  on  going  into  the  hall,  on  the 
morning  of  the  i5th,  he  met  Adams  and  proposed  to 
him  the  nomination  of  Colonel  Washington  for  the 
supreme  command,  and  that  Adams  turned  off  im 
patiently,  as  if  the  subject  were  distasteful  to  him. 
Therefore  the  deputy  from  Maryland  proceeded  to 
make  the  motion  which  had  been  agreed  upon.  As 
soon  as  Colonel  Washington's  name  was  mentioned 
he  withdrew  from  the  hall,  as  was  decorous  and 
proper,  and  upon  being  informed  of  the  passage  of 
the  resolution  he  resumed  his  place,  where  he  was 
informed  by  the  President  of  the  action  of  the  body. 

He  at  once  arose  and  thanked  his  colleagues  for 
the  confidence  they  had  reposed  in  him,  assured 
them  of  his  unfeigned  diffidence  as  to  his  ability  to 
justify  their  action,  for  he  thought  that  there  was 
another  gentleman  better  qualified  and  more  worthy 
of  the  great  responsibility,  and  stated  that,  as  no 
pecuniary  inducement  controlled  him  in  the  matter, 
he  would  receive  no  pay  or  allowances  as  attached 
to  his  place,  but  would  keep  an  exact  account  of  his 
expenses,  which  he  would  rely  on  the  justice  of  Con 
gress  to  reimburse. 

The  habit  of  the  Plantation  Book,  and  the  atten 
tion  to  detail  of  every  kind,  stood  him  in  good  stead 
in  the  business  of  governing  an  army  of  ten  thou 
sand  men  in  the  field,  as  it  had  done  a  detachment 
of  five  hundred  inferiors  on  a  plantation  ;  and  after 
the  war  was  over  the  account  of  Washington's  ex 
penses,  kept  in  his  own  handwriting,  was  submitted 
to  Congress  and  the  sum  total  reimbursed  him. 


106  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

These  autograph  accounts  may  still  be  seen  among 
the  archives  of  the  United  States  at  Washington. 
He  never  received  a  shilling  of  pay.  Immediately 
on  his  appointment,  without  a  moment's  delay,  he 
began  to  prepare  for  the  field.  He  sent  home  to 
Mount  Vernon  for  money  and  horses,  and  supplied 
his  wardrobe  for  the  campaign.  He  bought  five 
saddle-horses,  and  sent  his  carriage  and  its  horses 
back  to  Virginia.  On  June  23d  he  left  Philadelphia 
on  horseback  to  ride  to  Boston.  He  was  escorted 
by  the  First  City  Troop — a  troop  of  cavalry  well 
mounted,  well  drilled,  well  equipped,  and  well  offi 
cered,  consisting  of  the  jeunesse  dore  of  Philadelphia. 
He  was  accompanied  by  Generals  Charles  Lee  and 
Philip  Schuyler.  Lee  was  a  lieutenant  colonel  in 
the  British  army,  but  this  did  not  prevent  him  from 
accepting  the  rank  of  major  general  in  the  Conti 
nental  army,  third  in  rank  to  the  commander  in  chief, 
Ward,  of  Massachusetts,  being  second. 

Twenty  miles  from  Philadelphia  they  met  the 
courier  bringing  the  news  of  Bunker  Hill.  "  Did  the 
militia  fight?"  was  the  Virginian's  first  inquiry;  and 
when  it  was  made  clear  to  him  that  they  had  held  on 
to  their  rude  earthworks  with  rifles  and  shotguns 
against  the  British  bayonet,  until  their  last  cartridge 
was  fired,  and  had  been  pushed  out  only  after  in 
flicting  a  loss  of  thirty-three  per  cent  on  the  regulars 
and  suffering  a  loss  of  twenty-five  per  cent  in  their 
own  ranks,  he  rode  on,  perfectly  satisfied  that  lati 
tude  and  climate  had  not  modified  or  lessened  that 
solid  English  pluck  that  had  saved  the  routed,  fren- 
ized  fragments  of  the  regulars  on  the  Monongahela. 
He  was  everywhere  welcomed  with  cordiality  and 
distinction,  for  he  represented  chivalrous  aid  to  kith 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  107 

and  kin  in  a  cause  in  which  they  had  not  so  close 
material  interests. 

Washington  arrived  in  Boston  on  July  2,  1775, 
and  the  next  day  assumed  command  of  the  army, 
displaying  for  the  first  time  the  Continental  flag  bear 
ing  the  scarlet  and  white  bars  from  the  Washington 
arms,  thirteen  in  number  for  the  thirteen  colonies, 
and  in  the  union  the  red  cross  of  England  and  of 
Scotland,  of  St.  George  and  of  St.  Andrew,  forming 
the  Union  Jack  of  Great  Britain.  Under  this  flag, 
emblematic  of  the  united  colonies  and  of  their  re 
lation  to  the  mother  country,  General  Washington 
asserted  the  right  of  war  in  defense  of  hereditary 
rights  and  ancestral  liberty. 

The  army  at  Boston  consisted  of  eleven  thousand 
five  hundred  men  from  Massachusetts,  two  thousand 
three  hundred  from  Connecticut,  one  thousand  two 
hundred  from  New  Hampshire,  and  one  thousand 
from  Rhode  Island — sixteen  thousand  in  all.  They 
were  the  levy  en  masse  of  New  England  in  response 
to  the  guns  of  Lexington,  of  farmers'  sons,  of  city 
and  town  clerks,  of  the  enthusiasm  and  ardor  of 
the  English  of  New  England.  They  were  sent  by 
county  committees,  and  town  meetings,  on  all  sorts 
of  terms  of  enlistment,  and  on  all  kinds  of  promises 
of  pay.  They  were  armed  with  the  old  weapons  of 
the  Indian  and  French  wars,  and  clothed  with  the 
products  of  their  fathers'  farms  and  their  mothers' 
looms  and  fingers.  In  an  outburst  of  enthusiasm, 
when  aspiration  and  devotion  to  duty  absorbs  every 
energy  and  overwhelms  egotism,  selfishness,  vanity, 
and  self-assertion,  push  themselves  to  the  front, 
assert  control,  and  require  to  be  repressed,  as  they 
always  are  repressed,  by  the  stern  reality  of  action. 


108  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

In  the  radical  democratic  society  of  New  Eng 
land,  where  social  distinctions  had  for  generations 
been  resented  as  remains  of  aristocracy,  and  where 
universal  equality  was  recognized  as  the  only  rule  of 
life,  the  military  organization  necessarily  reflected 
the  conditions  from  which  it  arose.  The  men  elected 
their  officers,  from  colonel  to  junior  lieutenant,  and 
in  the  inexperience  of  men,  the  result  of  youth  and 
a  country  life,  frequently  made  great  mistakes  in 
their  selections.  The  Virginia  soldier,  accustomed 
to  the  discipline  of  the  border,  the  campaign,  and 
the  plantation,  found  his  army  a  mob,  courageous, 
earnest,  and  ignorant.  Very  many  of  the  officers  of 
the  line  were  utterly  worthless. 

Cowardly,  thieving  braggarts,  they  were  peculat 
ing  in  the  provisions  and  clothes  sent  from  home  to 
the  boys  in  the  field,  and  defrauding  them  of  their 
pay.  The  commander  in  chief  at  once  inspected  his 
command,  organized  a  staff,  and  made  himself  mas 
ter  of  details.  He  broke  two  captains  for  cowardly 
behavior  in  the  action  at  Bunker  Hill,  two  captains 
for  drawing  more  pay  and  provisions  than  they  had 
men  in  their  companies,  and  one  for  having  been  ab 
sent  from  his  post  when  the  enemy  appeared  and 
burned  a  house  just  by  it.  In  addition,  he  put  under 
arrest  and  sent  before  a  court-martial  under  charges, 
one  colonel,  one  major,  one  captain,  and  two  subal 
terns.  He  set  himself  to  stamp  out  selfishness  and 
self-seeking,  and  to  imbue  his  command  with  a  high 
sense  of  patriotism,  a  love  of  liberty  and  of  coun 
try,  and  devotion  to  duty,  as  the  vital  forces  which 
should  control  and  direct  every  member  of  it,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest.  But  among  the  officers 
were  some  of  the  highest  merit. 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  109 

Israel  Putnam,  Benedict  Arnold,  Nathanael 
Greene,  Henry  Knox,  and  John  Stark  were  all  there, 
whose  names  were  afterward  to  become  illustrious 
from  great  and  distinguished  service,  the  second  un 
happily  infamous  by  an  unparalleled  act  of  treachery. 
During  July  Congress  re-enforced  him  by  the  addi 
tion  of  three  thousand  Virginian  and  Maryland 
troops  under  Morgan  and  Cresap — that  Indian  fighter 
who  has  come  down  to  us  unjustly  branded  with  the 
murder  of  Logan's  family,  a  crime  with  which  he 
had  absolutely  no  connection,  and  of  which  he  was 
entirely  guiltless. 

The  summer  was  passed  in  drilling  and  organiz 
ing  the  troops,  and  collecting  ammunition.  He  sent 
a  swift  vessel  to  Bermuda  to  capture  a  cargo  of 
powder  there,  which  was  done.  He  strengthened 
his  lines  around  Boston.  The  lesson  of  Fort  Neces 
sity  had  been  beneficial,  and  experience  had  taught 
him  what  immense  advantage  topographical  position 
gives  in  war.  Here  he  began  to  develop  those  great 
conceptions  of  conditions  in  which  he  excelled  all 
men  in  America.  From  his  youth  accustomed  to 
great  distances,  and  to  appreciate  the  advantage  of 
grand  operations  as  manager  of  the  Ohio  Company, 
he  had,  by  personal  observation  and  constant  inter 
course  with  scouts  and  traders  for  twenty  years,  ar 
rived  at  Continental  ideas  of  the  strength  and  the  im 
portance  of  the  "  back  country,"  the  Western  lands. 

The  Quebec  Act  had  added  the  valley  of  the  Ohio 
to  Canada,  and  Washington  was  the  first  American 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  fatalism  of  "  manifest 
destiny."  He  understood,  as  no  man  else  in  America 
did  understand,  that  civilization  seeks  and  will  ob 
tain  the  nearest,  easiest  access  to  the  sea — the  com- 


110  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

mon  highway  of  communication  among  nations  in 
all  ages — and  that  the  people  who  in  time  must  domi 
nate  the  shores  of  the  Great  Lakes  and  banks  of  the 
rivers  would  seek  their  outlet  to  the  sea  by  the  flow 
ing  water,  the  St.  Lawrence  or  the  Mississippi,  unless 
they  were  bound  to  the  English  on  the  Atlantic  by 
short  and  easy  means  of  access. 

New  York  was  the  vulnerable  point  of  the  con 
federation.  The  capture  of  the  line  of  Lake  Cham- 
plain  and  the  Hudson  would  separate  New  England 
and  the  South,  and  leave  each  section  an  easy  victim 
to  the  British  arms.  The  military  instinct  of  the 
people  had  sent  Benedict  Arnold  and  Ethan  Allen  to 
capture  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point  before  the 
Congress  at  Philadelphia  had  moved  in  the  direction 
of  a  Continental  army,  and  the  New  Englanders  had 
secured  their  communications  with  the  South  by  seiz 
ing  the  line  of  New  York. 

As  soon  as  his  command  was  in  any  condition  to 
work,  Washington  sent  Montgomery  by  Ticonderoga 
to  Montreal,  and  Arnold  by  the  forests  of  Maine  to 
Quebec,  to  force  co-operation  between  Canada  and 
the  confederation,  thereby  relieving  "  the  Western 
lands  "  from  the  pressure  of  Indian  domination  and 
Canadian  influence.  The  conception  was  a  grand 
one.  Montgomery  captured  Montreal,  and  the  cam 
paign  would  have  been  a  success  save  for  one  of 
those  accidents  which  so  often  in  war  determine  the 
event  of  a  battle  and  the  fate  of  a  government. 
Montgomery  was  killed  and  Arnold  wounded  at  the 
head  of  their  respective  storming  parties  at  Quebec, 
and  by  these  chances  Canada  was  saved  to  Great 
Britain. 

Had   Quebec   been  captured,  Canadian  deputies 


THE  CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.      m 

would  have  been  sent  to  the  Continental  Congress, 
and  Canada  would  have  been  the  fourteenth  "  free, 
sovereign,  and  independent  State  "  acknowledged  by 
the  treaty  of  1783.  As  it  was,  Canada^sent  two  regi 
ments  to  the  Continental  army,  which  were  mus 
tered  into  service  as  "  Congress's  Own."  The  death 
of  Montgomery  saved  Canada  to  the  British,  and 
changed  the  course  of  history  ;  but  the  campaign 
originated  by  Washington  will  be  carried  out  by 
some  future  generation  of  Americans,  who  will  not 
permit  the  flanks  of  the  great  republic  to  be  threat 
ened  forever.  As  the  army  became  more  soldierly 
and  manageable,  the  commander  in  chief  became 
more  impatient  for  action.  Armies  are  made  for 
fighting,  and  soldiers  to  be  killed,  and  long  periods 
of  inaction  seriously  disorganize  the  one  and  destroy 
the  other. 

The  debating  society  at  Philadelphia  was  con 
stantly  urging  an  attack  on  Boston.  Gage  had  twelve 
veteran  regiments,  supported  by  a  well-armed  fleet 
in  the  harbor,  and  an  attack  on  the  city  would  have 
resulted  probably  in  the  loss  of  the  attacking  force,  and 
certainly  in  the  destruction  of  the  town.  But  "  On  to 
Boston  !  "  was  the  cry  in  Philadelphia,  just  as  "  On  to 
Richmond  !  "  was  the  cry  in  Washington  in  the  other  re 
bellion.  The  Virginian  commander  in  chief  of  1775  was 
made  of  stronger  material  than  the  Virginian  of  1861, 
and  no  urgency  or  appeals  could  make  him  move  until 
his  judgment  decided  that  the  time  was  propitious. 
He  could  not  neutralize  the  British  fleet  without  heavy 
artillery.  The  only  heavy  guns  within  the  control 
of  the  Continentals  were  at  Ticonderoga,  from  which 
there  were  neither  roads  nor  transportation.  When 
the  snows  came  and  the  ground  froze  hard,  ox-teams 


112  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

could  drag  them  on  sledges  over  the  fields  to  the 
camp,  and  then  something  could  be  done. 

Washington  also  had  knowledge  the  Congress 
could  not  have.  He  knew  Gage.  He  had  served 
with  him  in  the  Braddock  campaign,  where  he  com 
manded  the  Forty-fourth  Regiment  as  lieutenant 
colonel,  Colonel  Sir  Peter  Halkett  being  in  command 
of  the  brigade.  He  had  seen  Gage  at  mess,  at  drill, 
on  the  march,  in  camp,  and  in  battle,  and  had  meas 
ured  every  faculty  and  quality.  He  understood  how 
much  intelligence,  fortitude,  pertinacity,  and  patience 
he  had,  and  how  much  he  had  not.  He  knew  Gage's 
hand,  and  he  played  his  own  accordingly,  just  as 
Lee  afterward  played  his  against  McClellan,  Pope, 
and  Grant.  But  while  the  weather  was  open,  sledges 
were  prepared  in  the  woods  of  Vermont,  and  ani 
mals  collected  at  convenient  depots.  Of  this  no  one 
knew  but  the  commander  in  chief.  To  communicate 
it  to  the  Congress  would  have  been  to  inform  Gage, 
and  bring  on  an  attack  before  he  was  prepared. 
Congress  was  very  leaky,  and  several  members  were 
inclined  to  make  things  easy  by  hedging,  and  by 
keeping  open  the  door  of  reconciliation. 

In  August  he  was  called  upon  to  define  the  rela 
tions  the  two  armies  should  occupy  to  each  other, 
and  to  settle  the  question  once  for  all  whether  the 
conflict  should  be  war,  regulated  by  the  rules  of  civi 
lized  warfare,  or  whether  the  one  side  should  treat  it 
as  an  insurrection,  to  be  suppressed  by  any  means 
the  loyal  side  deemed  necessary.  The  solid  sense  of 
the  English  had  long  before  settled  all  questions 
growing  out  of  the  right  of  armed  resistance  to  ille 
gal  laws  and  wrongful  usurpations  of  authority,  for 
an  act  of  Richard  II  had  declared  that  adherence  to 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  113 

the  King  de  facto  should  not  be  considered  to  be 
treason. 

But  Gage,  with  that  fine  contempt  for  the  rights 
of  others  which  has  always  distinguished  a  domi 
nating  race,  decided  that  all  Englishmen  taken  in 
arms  against  their  lawful  King  were  rebels,  and  were 
to  be  treated  as  criminals,  imprisoned  in  jails,  tried 
by  loyal  juries,  sentenced  by  loyal  judges,  and  hung 
by  loyal  sheriffs.  Acting  on  this  plai-n  proposition 
and  simple  axiom,  he  had  confined  in  the  common 
jail  of  Boston  some  officers  of  the  Continental  army 
who  had  fallen  into  his  hands,  and  treated  them  with 
great  indignity.  The  commander  in  chief  at  once 
called  General  Gage's  attention  to  this  conduct  as 
contrary  to  the  rules  which  controlled  officers  and 
gentlemen,  in  war. 

The  ex-lieutenant  colonel  of  the  Forty-fourth 
took  occasion  to  read  his  ex-provincial  militia  com 
rade  a  lecture  on  the  iniquity  of  rebellion  and  the 
impiety  of  treason,  and  to  suggest  that  the  halter 
was  the  only  logical,  just,  and  necessary  way  of 
dealing  with  such  conduct.  Washington  first  put 
his  British  prisoners  in  jail,  and  then  gave  Gage  a 
little  lesson  in  manners  by  showing  him  that  gentle 
men  do  not  scold  nor  vituperate,  but  that  they  act. 
The  act  of  retaliation  settled  the  question.  The 
status  of  war  was  conceded  and  acknowledged,  and 
there  was  never  thereafter  any  question  of  rebel  or 
traitor,  treason  or  rebellion,  between  the  British  and 
the  Continental  authorities. 

The  Continental  line  extended  around  the  west, 
south,  and  northwest  sides,  of  Boston,  about  sixteen 
miles  in  length,  and  was  defended  by  a  series  of  forts, 
redoubts,  and  earthworks,  held  by  sixteen  thousand 


114 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


men — a  man  to  every  six  feet.  It  was  vulnerable  at 
several  points.  It  was  pierced  about  the  center  by 
the  Charles  River,  a  navigable  stream,  practicable 
for  General  Gage's  fleet. 

He  had  been  re-enforced  up  to  twenty  veteran 
regiments,  and  could  at  any  time,  from  July  until 
November,  have  moved  a  force  up  the  river,  pierced 
the  center,  and  rolled  back  the  left  wing,  under 
Major-General  Charles  Lee,  or  the  right  wing,  under 
Major-General  Artemus  Ward,  on  itself,  and  de 
stroyed  Washington's  army.  But  the  lieutenant 
colonel  of  the  Forty-fourth  had  had  a  lesson  on  the 
Monongahela,  and  another  one  at  Breed's  Hill,  of 
the  fighting  qualities  of  the  militia,  and  was  disin 
clined  to  risk  an  enterprise  against  them.  He  was 
roundly  denounced  in  England  for  his  inaction  and 
cowardice,  as  they  stigmatized  it,  and  in  October  was 
relieved  by  General  Sir  William  Howe,  the  brother 
of  Lord  Howe  commanding  the  fleet.  The  Howes 
were  grandsons  of  George  II  by  Miss  Kilmansegg, 
commemorated  by  Hood,  and  nephews  of  the  king, 
and  connection,  not  merit,  gave  them  these  important 
commands,  the  most  responsible  at  that  time  in  the 
British  army  and  navy. 

The  Congress  chafed  greatly  under  the  delay, 
but  made  no  impression  on  Washington.  In  Sep 
tember  he  proposed  an  attack  on  Boston  by  means 
of  boats,  in  co-operation  with  an  attempt  on  the  Brit 
ish  lines  at  Roxbury,  but  the  council  of  war  unani 
mously  agreed  "  that  it  was  not  expedient  to  make 
the  attempt  at  present  at  least."  Washington  wrote 
to  Congress  communicating  this  decision,  and  said,  "  I 
can  not  say  that  I  have  wholly  laid  it  [the  attack] 
aside;  but  new  events  may  occasion  new  measures." 


THE   CONTINENTAL   CONGRESS.  115 

The  pugnacious  disposition  of  the  man  was  not 
satisfied  with  the  inaction  of  a  council  of  war,  and  as 
soon  as  the  Charles  River  froze  over  he  proposed  to 
cross  on  the  ice  and  attack.  The  council  of  war 
again  thwarted  him.  But  he  was  determined  to  get 
at  the  enemy  by 'water  if  he  could  not  reach  them  by 
land.  He  fitted  out  and  commissioned  six  armed 
vessels  to  operate  in  their  rear  on  their  transports 
and  storeships.  The  militia  of  Marblehead  and  the 
fishermen  on  the  coast  of  New  England  supplied  the 
bravest,  most  daring  sailors  that  ever  flew  a  flag 
since  the  British  buccaneer  of  the  Spanish  main,  and 
for  a  time  the  commander  in  chief  of  the  army  was 
also  lord  high  admiral  of  the  sea  force,  just  as  his 
British  ancestors  had  been  a  thousand  years  before, 
to  defend  their  homes  and  altars  from  the  Saxon  and 
the  Dane.  He  was  chief  judge  in  admiralty  as  well, 
and  decided  all  questions  of  prizes  and  contraband 
of  war,  and  distribution  of  prize  money.  His  ships 
were  called  pirates,  but  they  were  not  treated  as  such. 

During  the  winter  the  accumulation  of  ammuni 
tion  and  collection  of  siege  guns  continued,  until 
early  in  March,  1776,  he  was  ready  to  strike.  Dor 
chester  Heights  is  an  elevated  piece  of  ground  to 
the  south  of  Boston,  and  commands  the  harbor  and 
south  side  of  the  city.  The  possession  of  ifts;  abso 
lutely  essential  to  the  security  of  the  port  ami  it 
passes  comprehension  why  Gage  did  not  occupy  and 
fortify  it  during  the  six  months  he  was  penned  up  in 
Boston.  Washington  had  seen  its  dominating  im 
portance  on  his  first  ride  along  his  lines.  Its  pos 
session  was  of  no  use  to  him  without  heavy  artillery. 
Held  with  long-range  guns,  it  made  Boston  and  Bos 
ton  harbor  untenable.  It  neutralized  both  army 
9 


Il6  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

and  navy  at  one  move,  and  for  months  the  resources 
of  the  quartermaster  and  commissary's  department 
were  taxed  to  their  utmost  to  supply  means  for  this 
checkmate. 

By  March  the  guns  of  Ticonderoga  had  arrived, 
hauled  over  the  snow  and  ice  and  frozen  ground  by 
oxen,  and  some  ammunition  had  been  collected  and 
prepared.  There  was  not  enough  to  carry  on  a  pro 
longed  cannonade,  but  Washington  knew  his  man,  and 
judged  rightly  that  the  moral  effect  of  the  exhibi 
tion  of  force  would  be  sufficient.  Consequently,  on 
the  night  of  the  4th  of  March  all  his  guns  from  Rox- 
bury  to  East  Cambridge,  everything  north  of  Charles 
River,  opened  on  the  redoubts  and  forts  opposite 
them,  and  kept  up  a  noisy  demonstration  all  through 
the  night. 

The  British  commander  concentrated  his  troops 
behind  the  expected  point  of  attack  at  the  place  of 
firing,  and  Washington  placed  two  thousand  men  with 
proper  intrenching  tools  on  Dorchester  Heights, 
where  before  day  they  had  covered  themselves  with 
sufficient  intrenchments  and  the  heavy  guns  of  Ti 
conderoga.  As  daylight  disclosed  the  disaster,  the 
commander  of  the  fleet  in  the  harbor  sent  word  to 
the  commander  of  the  troops  on  land,  that  if  the 
Americans  stayed  where  they  were  he  could  not  stay 
where  he  was. 

General  Howe  prepared  at  once  to  storm  the 
threatening  intrenchment,  and  ordered  out  Lord 
Percy  with  three  thousand  men  to  take  the  works. 
A  storm  came  up,  the  assault  was  abandoned,  and 
Howe  decided  to  evacuate  his  untenable  position. 
He  informed  some  of  the  principal  inhabitants  of  his 
determination  ;  they  conveyed  the  information  to 


THE   CONTINENTAL  CONGRESS.  117 

the  camp  at  Cambridge,  and  Washington,  acting  on 
the  maxim  of  a  bridge  of  gold  for  a  flying  enemy, 
forbore  to  molest  or  hinder  the  movement. 

On  March  17,  1776,  the  British  general  em 
barked  his  troops  on  the  fleet  of  transports  in  the 
harbor,  and,  carrying  with  him  nine  hundred  of  the 
principal  inhabitants,  sailed  to  Halifax.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  in  the  preceding  January  had  carried  off  a 
part  of  the  force  to  subjugate  North  Carolina.  In 
the  abandoned  town  Washington  secured  two  hun 
dred  cannon  of  various  calibers,  and  an  immense 
quantity  of  small  arms,  ammunition,  and  military 
stores  of  every  kind.  The  British  army  was  liberal 
in  the  supplies  furnished  to  equip  its  adversary,  and 
the  ammunition  captured  in  Boston  was  larger  in 
amount  than  all  that  had  been  collected  and  used  by 
the  Americans  in  the  process  of  their  expulsion. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WAR,    AND    THE    DECLARATION    OF    INDEPENDENCE. 

FOR  twelve  months  the  colonies  had  resisted  the 
Government  troops,  nullified  the  Government  laws, 
defied  the  Government,  Governors,  and  courts. 
They  had  met  the  King's  troops  at  Lexington  and 
Concord,  hunted  them  back  to  Boston,  and  then 
bottled  them  up  in  that  town  until  by  force  they  had 
expelled  them  from  the  colony.  In  Virginia,  the 
royal  Governor  Dunmore  had  been  defeated  at 
Great  Bridge  in  a  battle  on  December  Qth,  1775. 
In  North  Carolina,  Richard  Caswell  had  met  the 
Highland  Tories  under  Donald  McDonald  at  Moore's 
Creek,  February  27,  1776,  and  routed  them  with  a 
loss  of  nine  hundred  prisoners,  two  thousand  stand 
of  arms,  and  ,£15,000  in  gold.  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  had  captured  and  held  Crown  Point 
and  Ticonderoga,  the  gateway  to  Canada.  On  May 
10,  1775,  Montgomery  had  captured  Montreal,  and 
the  conquest  of  Canada  was  averted  only  by  the 
accident  of  the  death  of  Montgomery  and  the  wound 
ing  of  Arnold. 

The  rebel  flag  was  flying  on  the  Atlantic  from 
Bermuda  to  Newfoundland,  and  British  commerce 
was  dominated  in  the  North  Atlantic  by  piratical 
cruisers.  In  the  summer  of  1775  Gage  had  been 


THE   DECLARATION   OF   INDEPENDENCE.    119 

made  by  Washington  to  recognize  belligerent  rights 
in  treatment  of  prisoners  of  war,  but  the  British 
Government  still  insisted  upon  regarding  the  move 
ment  as  rebellion.  Now,  in  rebellion — resistance  to 
the  laws — every  individual  is  held  responsible  for  his 
own  action,  in  his  own  person  and  his  own  property. 
The  status  of  war  changes  all  that,  and  transfers 
responsibility  from  the  individual  to  his  government, 
or  supreme  authority,  which  is  waging  the  war,  and 
responsibility  ceases  to  be  personal  and  becomes 
national. 

Considering  the  rebellion  as  necessary  to  be  re 
pressed,  the  Government  first  read  the  Riot  Act  to 
the  rebels  in  the  way  of  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  then 
sent  in  the  troops  to  disperse  disorderly  assemblies 
and  suppress  turbulence.  The  disorderly  assemblies 
at  Bunker  Hill,  at  Moore's  Creek,  at  Great  Bridge, 
all  refused  to  disperse,  and,  after  a  manner,  mainly 
dispersed  the  posse  comitatus  sent  against  them. 
Therefore,  without  recognition  and  acknowledgment, 
the  fact  of  war  made  itself  known  and  appreciated, 
and  it  got  to  be  understood  in  London  that  a  fact 
can  not  be  waived  or  suppressed  by  a  preamble  of 
Parliament  or  an  Order  in  Council,  or  by  a  deci 
sion  in  the  Court  of  King's  Bench.  War  must  be 
met  by  war,  and  war  is  not  only  fighting  and  killing 
and  burning  but  requires  thinking  and  brains,  reason 
and  intelligence,  a  directed  plan,  a  method,  to  accom 
plish  results.  Over  such  a  territory  as  that  occupied 
by  the  colonies,  the  possession  of  certain  positions 
were  necessary  in  order  to  dominate  it,  and  the  con 
trol  of  certain  lines  of  communication  imperative. 

Geography  remains  unchanged  from  century  to 
century,  and  the  same  geographical  conditions  will 


120  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

require  substantially  the  same  movements.  The  ad 
vance  of  the  Russians  on  the  Bosporus  is  by  the 
same  lines  that  Alaric  and  Attila  marched  to  the 
west.  Napoleon's  inroad  into  Italy  was  on  the 
track  of  Hannibal.  The  same  things  to  be  done, 
the  identical  obstacles  to  meet  with,  the  means  em 
ployed  will  always  be  the  same  in  substance,  whether 
in  the  first,  the  twentieth,  or  the  thirtieth  century. 
The  invasion  of  Europe  by  the  hordes  of  Asia  will  be 
round  the  eastern  shore  of  the  Black  Sea ;  and  the 
mountain  ranges  of  middle  Europe  will  be  used  and 
held  as  defenses  against  them,  just  as  they  were 
against  the  Huns  and  the  Goths. 

The  physical  conformation  of  the  United  States, 
as  long  as  Canada  is  occupied  by  an  alien  power, 
renders  the  line  of  Lake  Champlain  and  the  Hudson 
its  weakest  point.  A  force  moving  down  the  lake 
could  easily  unite  with  a  force  coming  up  the  Hud 
son,  and  thus  isolate  New  England.  In  the  summer 
of  1759,  the  British,  under  General  Amherst,  had 
secured  Forts  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point,  and 
thus  closed  the  postern  by  which  the  French  could 
move  between  the  middle,  southern,  and  eastern 
colonies.  The  possession  of  Canada  gave  assur 
ance  of  the  control  of  this  outwork.  But  the  cap 
ture  of  Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point  by  Allen  and 
Arnold  had  nearly  neutralized  the  position  of  the 
northern  province,  and  destroyed  the  great  advan 
tage  the  St.  Lawrence  secured. 

With  the  control  of  deep  water,  British  arms 
would  threaten  the  northern  settlements,  and  the 
troops  of  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire  be  called 
back  to  defend  their  homes  and  their  farms.  Howe 
and  Gage  had  both  served  in  this  campaign  on 


THE    DECLARATION   OF    INDEPENDENCE.    I2i 

Champlain,  and  had  an  idea  of  the  importance 
of  the  line.  Whether  they  suggested  it  or  not, 
the  ministry  at  length  arrived  at  the  determination 
to  treat  the  insurrection  as  war,  and  to  operate 
against  it  on  defined  lines  of  strategy.  They  pro 
posed  to  move  Howe  from  Boston  to  New  York, 
take  possession  of  the  sea  and  the  city,  and  move  up 
the  Hudson  to  Albany,  to  meet  a  force  coming  down 
Champlain  under  command  of  General  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  Governor  of  Canada,  which  was  to  retake 
the  lake  forts,  and  complete  the  British  line  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  and  separate  New  Eng 
land  from  Virginia. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  taken  off  two  thousand 
men  from  Howe  at  Boston  to  reduce  the  Carolinas, 
but  the  Highland  rout  at  Moore's  Creek  gave  him 
check  on  the  Cape  Fear,  and  his  prompt  repulse  by 
Moultrie  in  Charleston  harbor  made  him  pause  in 
his  campaign  of  subjugation.  Howe  had  moved  to 
Halifax,  but  the  military  instinct  of  Washington 
convinced  him  that  Clinton  could  not  stay  South,  nor 
Howe  North.  They  could  not  remain  idle  after 
their  repulse  at  Boston,  at  Great  Bridge,  at  Moore's 
Creek,  at  Sullivan's  Island  ;  to  do  so  would  be  not 
only  confession  of  defeat,  but  defeat  itself.  In  the 
game  that  Washington  had  been  playing  for  ten 
months  in  the  trenches  at  Boston,  he  had  foreseen 
the  next  move,  and  had  provided  against  it  as  far  as 
his  means  would  allow.  New  York  and  the  line  of 
the  St.  Lawrence — the  lake  and  the  river — must  be  the 
next  move  of  the  enemy.  At  least  it  ought  to  be,  for 
it  was  the  proper  move  to  make. 

Therefore,  when  Washington  occupied  Boston  on 
March  lyth,  he  put  his  entire  energies  to  work  in 


122  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

stamping  out  smallpox  there,  and  collecting  the 
arms  and  munitions  of  war  left  by  the  enemy,  and  on 
the  2oth  started  his  advance  on  the  march  for  New 
York.  He  himself  set  out  on  April  4th,  and  on  April 
i4th  reported  to  Congress  the  arrival  of  himself 
and  army  at  New  York  on  the  day  before. 

His  army  present  for  duty  was  8,101  ;  aggregate 
present  and  absent  10,235  ;  which  shows  a  high 
standard  of  discipline  and  efficiency  in  an  army  of 
green  troops  after  a  year's  service  in  camp  without 
marching  and  fighting,  and  after  a  long  march  of 
twenty-four  days.  Under  such  circumstances,  a  loss 
of  only  twenty  per  cent  of  the  aggregate  present  and 
absent  and  the  number  for  duty  proves  fidelity  and 
devotion  in  the  troops,  and  firmness  and  capacity  in 
the  commander.  A  march  of  twenty-four  days  by 
troops  not  inured  to  the  discipline,  the  fatigue,  and 
the  customs  of  the  march,  fresh  from  ten  months' 
camp  duty,  was  a  severe  test  for  men  and  officers, 
and  the  way  they  stood  it  was  in  the  highest  degree 
satisfactory.  This  was  the  end  of  the  war  in  New 
England.  With  the  exception  of  Stark's  fight  at 
Bennington,  August  16,  1777,  and  Sullivan's  abortive 
attempt  on  Newport,  August  29,  1778,  the  scene  of 
war  moved  south  and  west  of  the  Hudson. 

It  was  a  fixed  delusion  of  the  British  mind  that 
the  insurrection  in  America  was  instigated,  organized, 
and  supported  by  a  small  minority  of  malcontents 
composed  of  ignorant  agitators  and  needy  adventur 
ers.  The  gentry,  the  property  holders,  the  educated 
class,  were  all  believed  to  be  "  loyal,"  and  rebellion 
to  be  promoted  in  the  main  by  the  "  low  Irish  "  and 
the  radical  descendants  of  the  Puritans  of  the  Com 
monwealth.  This  conviction  constrained  action  and 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


I23 


directed  sentiment  in  the  great  mass  of  the  English 
people.  Disunion  was  to  them  the  direst  disaster, 
for  it  would  bring  the  loss  of  the  American  trade, 
and  with  it  the  downfall  of  British  dominion  of 
the  seas.  But  added  to  this  material  consideration 
was  the  honorable  sentiment  that  it  would  be  base 
to  desert  kith  and  kin  engaged  in  a  death-struggle 
with  faction  in  defense  of  the  rights  of  the  mother 
country,  when  desertion  meant  defeat,  and  defeat 
destruction  of  life,  liberty,  and  property. 

Although  in  England  there  was  a  large  and  in 
fluential  sentiment  against  the  coercion  of  America 
by  arms,  there  was  absolutely  none  in  favor  of  dis 
solving  the  union  and  permitting  the  colonies  to 
establish  an  independent  and  separate  government. 
Every  party  was  agreed  upon  the  necessity  of  bring 
ing  them  back — George  II  and  Lord  North  by  force 
of  arms  and  by  conquest,  the  Earl  of  Chatham  and 
the  Duke  of  Richmond  by  conciliation  and  guarantee 
of  local  self-government.  But  this  extraordinary 
delusion  on  the  part  of  the  mother  country,  like  the 
identical  one  believed  in  by  the  Northern  States 
toward  the  Southern  States  in  the  war  of  secession, 
i86i-'65,  was  absolutely  unfounded  in  each  case. 
The  resistance  to  British  laws  did  not  mean,  in  the 
first  place,  revolution.  The  right  of  rebellion  had 
been  alwaj^s  the  right  to  resist  illegal  acts  of  gov 
ernment  by  arms,  and  was  the  method  by  which  the 
balance  of  liberty  had  been  preserved  and  the  Eng 
lish  Constitution  developed.  It  was  the  check  on 
absolute  power. 

The  men  of  New  England  and  of  Virginia  were 
close  to  the  Revolution  of  1688.  They  were  only 
four  generations  from  that  of  1649,  and  they  under- 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

stood  that  the  right  of  petition  was  backed  by  the 
right  of  resistance.  "  Resistance  to  tyrants  is  obe 
dience  to  God,"  had  always  been  the  foundation 
creed  of  the  race ;  and  when  the  King's  officers  at 
tempted  to  do  illegal  things  in  Boston,  or  in  Norfolk, 
or  in  Alamance,  or  on  the  Cape  Fear,  or  on  Sulli 
van's  Island,  the  English  took  arms  and  resisted. 
The  affairs  at  Lexington  and  at  Breed's  Hill,  the 
attacks  at  Great  Bridge,  at  Moore's  Creek,  and  at 
Fort  Moultrie,  had  developed  the  rebellion  into  war, 
and  the  English  colonies  were  almost  unanimous  in 
support  of  it.  They  were  led  by  no  minority.  It 
was  an  uprising  of  the  whole  people.  New  Eng 
land  rushed  to  arms  as  one  man  at  the  sound  of  the 
guns  at  Lexington.  The  countrymen  of  Virginia, 
from  the  Blue  Mountains  to  Old  Point  Comfort, 
marched  on  Lord  Dunmore  when  he  attempted  to 
incite  their  servants  and  negroes  against  them  and 
add  the  horrors  of  servile  to  the  barbarities  of  sav 
age  warfare. 

The  conditions  in  North  Carolina  were  peculiar. 
After  the  rebellion  of  1745  large  numbers  of  the  fol 
lowers  of  Prince  Charlie  had  been  deported  to  the 
Cape  Fear,  and  had  been  voluntarily  followed  by 
their  friends  and  relatives.  They  were  entirely  Jac 
obite  and  bitterly  anti-Hanoverian.  But  they  had 
been  spared  death  and  confiscation  on  condition  of 
taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  House  of  Han 
over,  and  had  given  their  paroles  never  to  take  up 
arms  against  the  Hanoverian  King.  When,  there 
fore,  the  question  of  resistance  came  up,  the  inflex 
ible  Presbyterian  conscience  controlled  them,  and 
they  were  bound  by  their  oaths  and  their  paroles. 

This  was  true  of  the  Highlanders.     The  Scotch- 


THE   DECLARATION   OF    INDEPENDENCE.    125 

Irish  of  the  western  part  of  the  colony  about  Meck 
lenburg  took  up  the  question  of  conscience  and 
solemnly  debated  it,  and  decided  that,  inasmuch  as 
the  King  of  England  had  broken  his  oath  to  do  jus 
tice  and  obey  the  laws,  their  oath  of  allegiance  bound 
them  no  longer.  They  arrived  at  the  same  conclusion 
that  the  Virginians  under  Patrick  Henry  and  the 
Massachusetts  men  under  James  Otis  and  Samuel 
Adams  did,  that  protection  and  allegiance  are  re 
ciprocal,  and  that  the  failure  of  the  King  to  do  his 
duty  absolved  them  from  all  obligation  to  him. 

It  became  manifest  to  all  that  the  condition  of 
resistance  to  law  must  of  necessity  be  temporary; 
that  either  the  Government  must  abandon  its  pre 
tension  of  the  right  to  make  laws  for  the  colonies, 
and  that  they  must  govern  themselves,  or  that  they 
must  be  reduced  to  the  condition  of  conquered  prov 
inces.  They  must  be  governed  by  England,  or  they 
must  govern  themselves.  The  logical  result  of  the 
situation  was,  that  victory  was  absolutely  necessary 
to  success.  It  was  clear  that  victory  could  not  be 
achieved  by  the  colonies  alone.  The  sea  was  en 
tirely  controlled  by  the  British.  Every  port,  bay, 
sound,  and  river  could  be  closed  by  their  fleets,  and 
while  they  could  be  prevented  from  penetrating  the 
country,  as  long  as  they  held  the  sole  means  of 
communicating  with  the  world  at  large  no  recogni 
tion  of  the  right  of  self-government  could  ever  be 
wrested  from  them. 

Samuel  Adams  says  that  from  the  beginning  he 
saw  clearly  that  the  only  safe  and  permanent  secur 
ity  from  the  aggressions  of  the  mother  country  was 
disunion  and  a  separate  government.  It  is  certain 
that  Virginia  did  not  enter  into  the  war  with  any  such 


126  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

view  or  intention.  She  intended  to  resist  usurpation 
until  usurpation  ceased,  and  she  desired  to  go  no  fur 
ther.  The  first  and  second  Continental  Congress  had 
no  other  view.  They  sent  petitions  to  the  King  and 
addresses  to  the  people  of  Great  Britain,  of  Canada, 
and  of  Bermuda,  insisting  that  their  cause — the  pres 
ervation  of  liberty  and  the  right  to  be  taxed  only 
by  their  own  representatives— was  the  cause  of  every 
British  freeman  at  home  and  in  every  colony. 

As  events  unfolded,  and  the  great  exhibition  of 
military  force  in  the  occupation  of  Boston  and  the 
concentration  of  troops  and  ships  against  the  col 
onists  got  them  to  understand  that  war  was  being 
waged  against  them,  they  fully  appreciated  the 
necessity  and  the  duty  of  meeting  war  with  war  ; 
and  war  could  only  be  carried  on  by  a  state — a  gov 
ernment  ;  therefore  it  became  necessary  that  the 
colonies  should  become  States,  should  undertake  the 
responsibility  of  war,  and  should  protect  their  citi 
zens  from  the  penalties  of  rebellion. 

The  movement  of  public  opinion  in  the  colonies 
had  tended  to  this  conclusion,  since  the  passage  of 
the  Boston  Port  Bill  and  the  affair  at  Lexington.  The 
garrison  of  Boston  with  an  army  had  arrayed  all 
New  England  in  armed  resistance.  The  proclama 
tion  of  Lord  Dunmore,  offering  liberty  to  servants 
and  slaves  in  Virginia,  was  followed  by  the  victory 
at  the  Great  Bridge.  The  rising  of  the  loyal  High 
landers  on  the  Cape  Fear  was  dispersed  at  Moore's 
Creek,  and  the  attack  on  South  Carolina  had  been 
defeated  at  Fort  Moultrie.  New  England,  Virginia, 
and  the  Carolinas  were  at  war  with  the  mother  coun 
try.  Between  the  two  sections  the  Middle  Colonies 
lay  neutral. 


THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 


127 


Maryland  was  contented  with  her  government 
and  her  charter.  She  felt  secure  in  her  right  of  local 
self-government,  and  had  asserted  it  in  her  General 
Assembly  from  the  foundation  of  the  colony.  The 
right  of  free  thought  secured  by  Caecilius  Calvert, 
and  never  impaired  while  the  proprietaries  and  the 
native  Marylander  controlled  the  Government,  had 
evolved  a  type  of  character  distinct  and  sharply  de 
fined.  The  delightful  climate  of  the  bay,  and  its 
great  rivers,  the  picturesque  scenery  of  meadow  and 
forest,  of  plain  and  of  mountain,  made  life  one  con 
tinual  delight,  cultivated  an  aesthetic  enjoyment  of 
beauty  and  pleasure,  and  produced  a  race  liberal  in 
thought,  tender  in  sentiment,  brave,  chivalric,  and 
generous.  It  was  frank,  manly,  courageous,  and  de 
termined.  When  its  rights  were  infringed  by  the 
Stamp  Act,  the  county  court  of  Frederick  County 
decided  that  the  law  was  void,  because  contrary  to 
common  right,  and  required  its  officers  to  disobey  and 
ignore  it,  by  its  recorded  action.  When  tea  was  at 
tempted  to  be  imported  on  the  igth  of  October,  1775, 
at  Annapolis,  the  Marylanders  burnt  ship  and  cargo 
in  open  day,  and  no  attempt  was  ever  made  to  extort 
from  them  apology  or  compensation.  No  British 
garrison  ever  affronted  their  borders,  no  British  sol 
dier  ever  trod  their  soil ;  but  when  Boston  was  at 
tacked  and  New  England  invaded,  the  chivalry  of 
the  race  rose  at  once,  declared  that  the  cause  of 
Boston  was  the  cause  of  all,  and,  feeling  that  "blood 
is  thicker  than  water,"  rallied  from  mountain  to  sea, 
and  marched  to  the  relief  of  their  kin  beyond  the 
Hudson.  And  from  the  hour  Cresap  marched  from 
Frederick  to  the  day  of  the  surrender  at  Yorktown, 
the  Maryland  line  on  every  stricken  field — at  Long 


128  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Island,  at  White  Plains,  at  Brandywine,  Germantown, 
Trenton,  and  Monmouth,  and  the  long  roll  of  South 
ern  battles — bore  the  standard  of  the  black  and  gold 
in  the  front  of  fire,  sometimes  to  victory,  oftentimes 
to  defeat — always  to  glory. 

But  Maryland  loved  the  mother.  The  ties  of 
blood  were  as  close  to  her  as  to  brethren  in  New 
England.  They  were  faithful  to  their  friends,  and 
they  stood  fast  by  them  in  the  test  of  trial.  No  Tory 
regiment  was  ever  raised  and  served  in  Maryland. 
One  was  organized  on  the  eastern  shore,  but  it  was 
promptly  moved  to  New  Jersey,  and  soon  afterward 
to  Nova  Scotia  and  dispersed.  The  pressure  of  the 
war  drove  all  men's  minds  in  the  same  direction. 
The  Scotch-Irish  of  Mecklenburg  County,  North 
Carolina,  first  reached  the  logical  conclusion  that 
final  separation  and  disunion  could  afford  the  only 
guarantee  of  future  peace,  and  security  for  local  self- 
government. 

A  meeting  at  Charlotte,  on  the  2oth  day  of  May, 
1775,  solemnly  resolved  "  That  we,  the  citizens  of 
Mecklenburg  County,  do  hereby  dissolve  the  polit 
ical  bands  which  have  connected  us  to  the  mother 
country,  and  do  hereby  absolve  ourselves  from  all 
allegiance  to  the  British  Crown,  and  abjure  all  polit 
ical  connection,  contract,  or  association  with  that 
nation,  which  has  wantonly  trampled  on  our  rights 
and  liberties,  and  inhumanly  shed  the  blood  of 
American  patriots  at  Lexington.  That  we  do  here 
by  declare  ourselves  a  free  and  independent  people; 
are,  and  of  right  ought  to  be,  a  sovereign  and  self- 
governing  association,  under  the  control  of  no  power 
other  than  that  of  our  God  and  the  General  Govern 
ment  of  the  Congress,  to  the  maintenance  of  which 


THE   DECLARATION   OF   INDEPENDENCE.    129 

independence  we  solemnly  pledge  to  each  other  our 
mutual  co-operation,  our  lives,  our  fortunes,  and  our 
most  sacred  honor."  And  they  adopted  a  rule  of 
law,  and  organized  a  government  to  enforce  the 
law  and  carry  out  their  determination.  The  simi 
larity  of  some  expressions  of  this  declaration  with 
those  of  the  Continental  Congress  on  July  4,  1776, 
has  led  to  vehement  denial  of  its  genuineness,  and 
the  overwhelming  proof  of  there  having  been  a 
meeting  at  Charlotte  in  May,  1775,  which  made  some 
hostile  declaration,  has  been  sought  to  be  met  by 
substituting  the  action  of  a  meeting  which,  it  is  con 
ceded,  did  take  place  there  on  May  3ist,  but  which 
did  not  declare  independence. 

But  the  evidence  that  Mecklenburg  County  did 
declare  independence  in  May,  1775,  is  absolutely 
conclusive.  The  contemporaneous  records  of  the 
county  court  show  more  than  twenty  deeds  recorded 
between  1785  and  1793,  which  date  the  independence 
of  North  Carolina  from  May,  1775,  and  of  the  United 
States  from  July,  1776.  Patents  for  land,  issued  by 
the  Governor  of  North  Carolina  about  the  same  time, 
date  the  independence  of  the  State  from  May,  1775. 
Therefore,  though  much  denied,  it  must  be  agreed 
that  Mecklenburg  County  did  declare  independ 
ence  on  the  2oth  of  May,  1775.  A  copy  of  their 
resolutions  was  sent  to  the  Provincial  Congress  at 
Halifax,  which  promptly  passed  resolutions  direct 
ing  their  deputies  in  the  Continental  Congress  to 
vote  for  independence  and  to  form  foreign  alliances. 
Events  had  lagged  for  a  year.  At  Lexington,  on 
April  19,  1775,  and  Breed's  Hill,  June  17,  1775,  at 
Ticonderoga  and  Crown  Point,  May  10,  1775 — New 
England  had  made  the  issue  of  war.  The  summer 


1 3o 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


was  occupied  in  carrying  on  correspondence,  discus 
sion,  and  conference. 

The  Continental  army,  under  its  Virginian  com 
mander,  held  Gage  fast  in  Boston.  In  November, 
Dunmore  offered  freedom  to  the  servants  of  Virginia. 
The  Virginians  rose,  drove  him  from  his  fortification 
of  Great  Bridge,  December  9,  1775,  and  on  New 
Year's  day,  1776,  he  burnt  Norfolk.  On  February  27* 
1776,  the  Whigs  routed  the  Highlanders  at  Moore's 
Creek.  On  June  28,  1776,  Rutledge  and  Moultrie 
defeated  Sir  Henry  Clinton  on  Sullivan's  Island,  in 
Charleston  harbor.  These  fast  following  events 
were  heating  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

In  May,  1776,  Virginia  instructed  her  deputies  in 
Congress  "  to  propose  to  that  respectable  body  to 
declare  the  United  Colonies  free  and  independent 
States,  and  to  give  the  assent  of  the  colony  to  meas 
ures  to  form  foreign  alliances,  and  a  confederation, 
provided  the  power  of  forming  governments  for  the 
internal  regulations  of  each  colony  be  left  to  the  colo 
nial  legislatures."  Maryland,  on  June  28th,  instruct 
ed  her  deputies  to  assent  to  a  declaration  of  inde 
pendence,  and  to  foreign  alliances,  and  on  July  3d 
issued  her  solemn  declaration  that  Maryland  was, 
and  of  right  ought  to  be,  a  free,  sovereign,  and  inde 
pendent  State.  On  May  4,  Rhode  Island  omitted  the 
King's  name  from  all  writs  and  proclamations,  and 
the  May  town  meetings  throughout  Massachusetts 
declared  for  independence.  In  June,  Connecticut, 
New  Hampshire,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and 
Delaware,  all  declared  for  independence. 

On  June  7th,  Richard  Henry  Lee,  a  deputy  from 
Virginia,  submitted  to  the  Congress  a  resolution 
"  That  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought 


THE  DECLARATION   OF    INDEPENDENCE.    131 

to  be,  free  and  independent  States  ;  that  they  are 
absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  Crown  ; 
and  that  all  political  connection  between  them  and 
the  state  of  Great  Britain  is  and  ought  to  be  totally 
dissolved.  That  it  is  expedient  forthwith  to  take  the 
most  effectual  measures  for  forming  foreign  alliances. 
That  a  plan  of  confederation  be  prepared,  and  trans 
mitted  to  the  respective  colonies  for  their  consider 
ation  and  approbation."  This  resolution  was 
promptly  seconded  by  John  Adams,  of  Massachusetts, 
and  opposed  by  Dickenson  and  Wilson,  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  and  Robert  Livingston,  of  New  York.  The 
issues  presented  were,  first,  Independence  ;  second, 
Foreign  Alliances.  Attachment  to  home,  home  peo 
ple,  and  home  ties  arrayed  a  large  section  of  public 
sentiment  against  the  first.  Inherited  race  antago 
nisms  of  a  thousand  years  forbade  sympathy  with 
the  second.  There  never  had  been  a  time  since  the 
Crusades  when  Englishmen  were  in  alliance  with 
Frenchmen  and  Spaniards.  They  were  the  natural- 
born  enemies  of  the  English  race,  and  it  was  just 
as  natural  for  Englishmen  to  attack  them  on  sight 
as  to  kill  a  snake. 

The  grandfathers  of  many  of  the  colonists  had 
won  fame  and  fortune  by  the  plunder  of  treasure 
galleons  on  the  Spanish  main,  and  the  present  gener 
ation  had  fought  them  and  their  savage  allies  from 
the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  on  the  Ohio,  along  the  French 
Broad,  the  Chattahoochee,  and  the  St.  Mary's.  The 
very  idea  of  foreign  alliance  was  distasteful  and 
hateful  to  very  many  earnest  Englishmen  who  sin 
cerely  desired  to  preserve  their  rights,  but  they 
doubted  whether  such  alliance  would  not  lead  to  sub 
ordination  to  their  hereditary  foes.  The  Congress 
10 


132  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

was  divided.  Independence  with  alliance,  subjugation 
without  alliance,  undoubtedly  led  to  future  danger  ; 
but  subjugation  was  present  and  pressing.  In  the 
debate  the  aggressive,  radical  thought — as  it  always 
has  and  always  will — prevailed  over  the  conservatism 
which  is  in  the  main  timidity.  Action,  which  is 
courage,  must  overcome  non-action,  which  is  always 
cowardice. 

And  therefore  the  timid  counsels  of  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania  were  overridden  by  the  positive 
enthusiasm  of  Virginia,  backed  by  Massachusetts, 
and  on  July  4,  1776,  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  was  adopted.  The  whole  weight  and  influence 
of  Washington  were  thrown  on  the  side  of  action. 
With  patient,  persistent  correspondence,  he  urged  on 
the  governors  of  the  States  the  necessity  of  foreign 
alliance  to  prevent  subjugation,  and  the  necessity  of 
a  declaration  of  independence  to  secure  alliance.  It 
is  not  just  to  say  that  his  influence  contributed 
largely  to  secure  the  declaration.  It  did  not — nor 
did  any  one  man's,  nor  any  one  State's.  Independ 
ence  was  the  necessary  consequence  of  armed  resist 
ance  to  the  laws ;  and  when  the  issue  was  made 
between  the  supremacy  of  the  law  or  the  supremacy 
of  force,  one  or  the  other  must  prevail.  If  Great 
Britain  was  resolved  to  hold  to  the  right  to  make 
laws  for  the  colonies,  she  alone  would  have  the 
power  to  decide  what  laws  she  would  make.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  be  held  that  the  colonies  had  the 
right  to  make  their  own  laws,  that  fact  made  them 
independent. 

The  supreme  intelligence  of  a  race,  of  a  great 
mass  of  people,  takes  in  and  appreciates  such  an 
issue,  as  clearly,  as  strongly,  and  as  vividly  as  the 


THE    DECLARATION    OF    INDEPENDENCE.    133 

highest  intellect  or  the  most  vigorous  mind,  and  the 
people  think  with  their  hearts.  They  arrive  at  con 
clusions  independent  of  and  superior  to  ratiocination 
and  to  logic.  They  knew  that  they  must  be  free — free 
to  govern  themselves  according  to  their  own  ideas  of 
justice — or  that  they  must  be  governed  and  controlled 
by  the  ideas  of  Great  Britain.  All  along  the  sea 
board,  in  the  township  meetings  of  New  England, 
in  the  vestries  of  Maryland  and  Virginia,  in  the 
county  meetings  of  the  Carolinas,  the  body  of  the 
people  were  meditating,  ruminating,  discussing,  de 
bating  these  problems.  What  Henry,  and  Lee,  and 
Adams,  and  the  leaders  did,  was  to  point  the  way. 
The  people  had  resolved  on  independence  before 
the  Congress  acted  or  the  provincial  assemblies  had 
taken  ground. 

Independence  was  a  popular  movement,  originat 
ing  among  and  propagated  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
people,  and  it  is  error  to  think  that  any  one  man,  or 
set  of  men,  contributed  largely  to  it.  It  would  have 
come  if  the  leaders  had  never  lived;  it  would  have 
created  leaders.  If  Washington  had  not  lived  at  that 
particular  epoch,  the  rebellion  of  i775~'76  would 
probably  have  failed,  but  it  would  have  arisen  again 
and  been  successful  in  the  next  generation.  For 
when  men  mature  from  boyhood,  they  must  emanci 
pate  themselves. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

THE    NEW    YORK    CAMPAIGN. 

WHEN  Washington  arrived  at  New  York  his  situ 
ation  was  still  most  unsatisfactory.  He  was  to  hold 
a  position  on  deep  water,  without  ships,  without 
heavy  artillery,  without  scientific  or  skilled  engi 
neers.  Though  his  own  genius  and  experience 
showed  him  the  points  to  occupy  and  fortify  in 
order  to  control  the  waters  around  New  York,  he 
was  utterly  unable  to  accomplish  what  was  abso 
lutely  necessary  for  success. 

The  British  vessels  could  anchor  within  easy 
gunshot  of  New  York,  and  with  the  means  at  his 
command  the  occupation  of  Long  Island  afforded 
the  only  chance  for  delaying  them.  Delay  was  the 
only  thing  possible  for  the  Americans.  The  war 
was  greatly  opposed  at  home.  The  Continental  na 
tions  were  slowly  awakening  to  the  fact  that  a  tre 
mendous  blow  impended  over  Great  Britain,  and 
that  a  wound  was  threatened  which  would  seriously 
impair  her  prestige,  inflict  great  loss  of  material  re 
sources,  and,  by  the  creation  of  a  great  maritime 
nation  such  as  the  Americans  of  the  seaboard — with 
their  bays,  their  rivers,  and  their  fisheries,  must  of 
necessity  become  in  course  of  time — would  neutral 
ize  her  supremacy  on  the  high  seas.  The  French 
had  seen  this  from  the  first,  and  industriously  fanned 


THE   NEW  YORK   CAMPAIGN. 


135 


the  flame  of  discontent  by  emissaries  in  the  colonies, 
by  sympathy  in  Paris,  and  by  secret  and  adroit  sub 
ventions  of  money.  It  was  the  counter  move  of  the 
French  Minister  in  retaliation  for  the  loss  of  Canada. 

Washington  understood,  as  few  Americans  of  his 
day  did  understand,  that  the  way  to  win  respect  is 
to  compel  it,  and  that  his  first  duty  was  to  show  the 
world  that  the  Americans  could  fight,  that  he  could 
lead  them,  and  that  their  resistance  would  be  long 
and  obstinate.  The  control  of  the  deep  sea  gave 
Great  Britain  absolute  control  of  the  coast  from 
Halifax  to  Florida,  and  largely  that  of  commerce  on 
the  high  sea.  It  made  the  occupation  by  the  Ameri 
cans  of  any  position  within  reach  of  the  guns  of  the 
fleet  precarious.  The  strategy  of  the  war,  there 
fore,  must  of  necessity  be  defensive.  Allies  and  re- 
enforcements  were  sure  to  come  from  the  ambition, 
the  necessities,  and  the  antipathies  of  Continental 
Europe.  They  would  certainly  embrace  this  oppor 
tunity  to  humble  the  mistress  of  the  seas,  if  it  was 
an  opportunity.  But  to  secure  allies,  the  colonists 
must  prove  that  they  could  furnish  a  solid  basis  for 
alliance ;  to  draw  re-enforcements,  they  must  show 
armies  to  re-enforce. 

Therefore  Washington's  business  was  to  fight 
enough,  but  not  too  much ;  to  retreat  when  he  could 
not  help  it,  but  not  too  far  or  too  often ;  to  keep 
his  troops  encouraged  by  enough  taste  of  blood  to 
brace  them  up ;  and  to  satisfy  Europe  that  there 
was  a  prospect  of  success.  To  do  this  required 
an  army,  ordnance,  arms,  ammunition,  men,  rations, 
wagons,  horses,  and  forage.  Some  of  these  requi 
sites  were  furnished  by  the  colonies  to  their  own 
troops.  The  Maryland  Convention,  for  instance, 


136 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


appointed  a  committee  to  inquire,  report,  and  con 
tract  for  as  many  rifles,  muskets,  and  bayonets,  with 
belts  and  cartridge-boxes,  as  could  be  furnished  by 
the  mechanics  of  the  colony.  They  reported  the 
name  of  every  gunsmith,  and  the  number  of  guns, 
bayonets,  cartridge-boxes,  and  belts  that  each  could 
furnish  per  month,  and  contracted  with  every  man 
who  could  wield  a  hammer  or  a  file,  from  Penn's  line 
to  the  Potomac  and  from  the  Susquehanna  to  the 
Pocomoke,  for  all  the  guns  and  accoutrements  they 
could  supply.  This  system  was  pursued  through 
the  whole  war.  The  Maryland  line  thus  was  kept 
armed  whenever  it  was  possible  to  manufacture 
arms.  But  the  energy  of  the  rebellion  was  in  the 
army  and  in  the  colonial  congresses  or  conventions. 

The  Congress  at  Philadelphia  did  not  attract  the 
best  men.  It  had  no  power;  it  could  do  nothing. 
The  places  where  work  was  done  were  Annapolis, 
or  Williamsburg,  or  Halifax,,  or  Charleston,  or  at 
Salem.  It  could  and  did  issue  at  times  promises  to 
pay,  which  were  promptly  repudiated  by  the  general 
sense  of  the  community,  but  in  the  whole^course  of 
the  war  the  Continental  Congress  never  raised  a 
man  for  the  army  nor  a  dollar  by  taxation  of  the 
people.  It  was  a  league  of  independent  colonies 
differing  widely  from  each  other  in  race,  affinities, 
and  traditions,  in  political  institutions,  and  in  re 
ligious  faith.  The  Puritan  of  New  England  was  per 
meated  with  an  intense  conviction  of  the  solemnity 
of  life — a  "  little  space  of  time  between  two  eterni 
ties  " — and  was  impressed  with  a  profound  sense  of 
the  duty  of  preparing  himself,  his  family,  his  friends, 
and  everybody  he  could  make  do  as  he  thought  prop 
er,  for  this  eternity  of  torture  and  suffering. 


THE   NEW   YORK   CAMPAIGN. 


137 


This  theological  creed  or  subjective  training  has 
made  the  Puritan  type  a  distinct  one  in  the  evolu 
tion  of  races.  His  super-abnormal  conscience,  add 
ed  to  severe  rigors  of  climate,  have  produced  a  char 
acter  which,  for  self-reliance,  endurance,  courage, 
and  perseverance,  is  unequaled  in  history,  though  it 
may  lack  the  graces  and  decorations  which  alleviate 
the  troubles  of  life.  The  Cavalier  population,  on 
the  other  hand,  on  the  Chesapeake,  on  Pamlico  and 
Albemarle  sounds,  and  on  the  Cape  Fear,  the  Ashley, 
and  the  Cooper  rivers,  regarded  life  not  as  a  gloomy 
preparation  for  a  future  state — the  terrors  of  which 
could  only  be  escaped  by  skillful  avoidance  of  the 
decrees  of  Providence,  or  by  constant  and  stern  ad 
herence  to  duty — but  as  a  bright  and  beautiful  gar 
den,  full  of  lovely  flowers,  delightful  odors,  fragrant 
herbs;  where  the  rose,  when  plucked  too  roughly, 
avenged  the  indignity  with  its  thorns;  and  the  bee, 
when  robbed  of  his  honey,  punished  the  marauder 
with  his  sting;  where  the  pleasure  of  living  justified 
"  life " ;  where  every  sensation  was  a  delight  and 
every  sentiment  a  gratification. 

Love,  charity,  gratitude,  friendship,  were  the 
cardinal  virtues.  Revenge,  malice,  hatred — ignoble 
vices.  They  lived  to  live ;  they  loved  to  love ;  they 
enjoyed  being  friends.  Between  these  two  civiliza 
tions  there  could  never  be  sympathy  entire  and  cor 
dial.  It  was  the  feeling  of  family,  blood,  race,  that 
first  drew  the  Cavalier  to  the  side  of  the  Puritan  to 
defend  him  and  his  rights  from  aggression ;  and 
once  there,  it  was  contrary  to  every  theory  of  his 
life  ever  to  leave  it.  Loving  ease  and  pleasure,  self- 
indulgent  to  a  degree,  they  sacrifice  everything  they 
have  for  kin  or  friends,  and  stake  everything  on  the 


138  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

side  they  espouse.  These  two  diametrically  dis 
cordant  societies  could  not  possibly  be  welded  into 
a  perfect  union.  They  were  jealous  of  each  other, 
and  each  was  too  suspicious  to  trust  any  neighbor 
with  any  influence  over  its  destinies. 

North  Carolina  and  South  Carolina,  Virginia, 
Maryland,  and  Pennsylvania,  New  York  and  New 
Hampshire,  had  bitter  boundary  disputes,  and  all 
were  watchful,  lest  alliances  might  sacrifice  some 
of  their  charter  rights  instead  of  strengthening 
them.  Therefore  the  Continental  Congress  lacked 
coherence,  force,  power,  and  enthusiasm.  It  had 
the  jealousy  of  small  men  against  military  dictator 
ship,  such  as  was  subsequently  felt  against  McClellan, 
Grant,  and  Sherman  by  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States.  It  passed  resolutions  calling  upon  the  colo 
nies  to  furnish  men  and  means.  It  had  no  power  to 
enforce  its  own  requisitions.  It  left  to  the  colonies 
the  power  to  appoint  regimental  officers,  and  assumed 
to  itself  that  of  selecting  general  officers.  It  ap 
pointed  generals,  but  it  could  not  enlist  a  man.  It 
selected  commissaries,  but  could  not  provide  a  barrel 
of  beef.  It  sent  out  quartermaster  generals,  but  had 
not  a  wagon  or  a  horse  of  its  own. 

Therefore  the  war  and  the  strategy  of  the  war  was 
to  be  devised  and  executed  by  Washington,  and  this 
labor  was  far  more  arduous  than  the  marches,  the 
bivouacs,  the  battles  of  the  ensuing  five  years.  It 
is  a  fact  that  the  Continental  Congress  was  a  hin 
drance  and  not  a  help.  Many  members  were  ardent 
patriots;  they  risked  their  lives  and  their  fortunes 
for  the  cause.  But  not  a  few  were  time-servers, 
patriots  for  the  present,  to  avoid  risk  to  person  and 
property,  but  prudent  as  well  to  keep  up  a  secret  tie 


THE   NEW   YORK   CAMPAIGN.  139 

with  the  mother  country  and  its  friends  in  this. 
With  such  a  body  behind  him,  utterly  useless  to  help 
but  quite  efficient  to  hinder,  Washington  was  forced 
to  rely  on  himself.  He  was  one  of  the  greatest  letter- 
writers  that  ever  lived.  The  last  collection  of  his 
letters  contains  six  or  seven  thousand  in  fourteen 
good-sized  volumes,  and  still  it  is  very  incomplete, 
having  left  out  hundreds  as  yet  unpublished. 

But  from  the  day  Washington  left  the  Congress, 
on  June  22,  1775,  to  December  23,  1783,  when  he  re 
signed  his  commission  at  Annapolis,  not  a  day  passed 
without  his  addressing  a  long  letter  to  the  Congress, 
to  the  Governor  of  one  of  the  States,  or  to  one  of 
the  leading  men  in  the  respective  States,  pointing  out 
the  means  by  which  the  common  cause  could  be 
furthered,  and  urging  persistently,  with  never-failing 
patience  and  courage,  that  these  means  and  measures 
be  utilized  to  the  last  degree.  When,  therefore,  the 
army  was  collected  at  New  York,  everyone  knew 
that  the  position  was  untenable.  Sir  William  Howe 
had  gone  to  Halifax  with  the  great  body  of  the 
garrison  of  Boston,  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  sailed 
south  with  another  part  of  it,  to  reduce  the  Carolinas. 
Georgia  gave  no  trouble. 

The  affair  at  Moore's  Creek  had  warned  Sir 
Henry  out  of  the  Cape  Fear,  and  he  proceeded  to 
Charleston,  where  he  lay  until  the  fleet  of  Sir 
Peter  Parker,  from  Ireland,  re-enforced  him.  On 
June  28,  1776,  the  Palmetto  Fort  on  Sullivan's 
Island,  commanded  by  Moultrie,  colonel  of  State 
troops  under  direction  of  John  Rutledge,  President 
of  South  Carolina,  drove  off  the  British  fleet  and 
British  troops  landed  by  Clinton,  to  carry  it  by 
assault.  Therefore  early  in  July  Washington  knew 


140  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

that  the  inevitable  was  about'to  take  place.  Sir  Guy 
Carleton,  Governor  of  Canada,  would  move  down 
Lake  Champlain,  Sir  William  Howe  and  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  re-enforced  by  Sir  Peter  Parker,  would  con 
centrate  in  New  York  harbor,  sail  up  the  East  River, 
cut  off  the  Long  Island  garrison,  and  then  proceed  up 
the  North  River,  communicate  with  General  Carleton 
at  Lake  George,  and  cut  the  rebellion  in  half. 

It  was  the  business  of  the  American  general  to 
checkmate  this  game,  and  to  do  it  without  fighting, 
for  a  pitched  battle  would  have  been  swift,  certain 
ruin  ;  but  to  do  it  also  without  fleeing,  for  that  would 
have  been  equally  disastrous.  He  was  to  handle 
green  troops  so  as  to  blood  them  sufficiently,  and 
then  get  them  out  without  destructive  loss.  There 
fore  when  his  army  reached  New  York,  on  April  23, 
1776,  he  placed  half  of  it — nine  thousand  men — under 
command  of  Putnam,  on  Brooklyn  Heights,  on  Long 
Island,  which  dominated  New  York  city  and  bay, 
just  as  Dorchester  Heights  had  controlled  Boston. 
But  the  position  on  Long  Island  was  surrounded  by 
deep  water.  Sir  William  Howe,  the  British  com 
mander  in  chief,  had  more  than  twenty-five  thousand 
veteran  troops,  and  an  efficient  fleet  carrying  as 
heavy  guns  as  were  then  used  in  maritime  war.  The 
East  River,  between  Long  Island  and  New  York,  is  a 
mile  wide,  and  navigable  for  the  heaviest  ships.  It 
is  approached  from  the  lower  bay  of  New  York 
through  the  Narrows,  or  from  Long  Island  Sound 
through  Hell  Gate. 

On  August  22,  1776,  Sir  William  Howe,  landed 
twenty  thousand  men  at  Gravesend  Bay.  On  the 
26th  he  sent  the  fleet  under  command  of  his  brother, 
Admiral  Lord  Howe,  to  make  a  feint  on  New  York. 


THE   NEW  YORK   CAMPAIGN.  141 

On  the  27th  he  moved  on  the  American  position, 
which  he  had  flanked  in  the  night.  General  Grant, 
with  the  Highland  Regiments,  advanced  on  the 
coast  road,  the  outposts  of  which  were  held  by 
the  Maryland  line  under  command  of  Major- 
General  William  Alexander,  of  New  Jersey,  who 
called  himself  Lord  Stirling,  after  a  Scotch  earldom 
of  James  I's  creation  which  had  lapsed,  and  was 
claimed  by  the  New  Jersey  Alexanders,  and  the 
claim  disallowed  by  the  Scotch  courts.  The  Mary- 
landers  were  the  first  Americans  who  ever  met  the 
British  in  line  of  battle  in  the  open  field.  Handled 
skillfully,  and  gallantly  led  by  Alexander,  Small- 
wood,  and  their  regimental  and  line  officers,  the 
Marylanders,  by  reiterated  charges,  checked  pursuit 
until  nightfall. 

Washington  saw  the  engagement  from  the 
Brooklyn  side.  The  result  was  anticipated  and 
provided  for,  and  two  nights  afterward  the  whole 
American  army  was  safely  ferried  over  the  East 
River  and  at  once  marched  north,  clear  of  the  town. 
This  movement  was  going  on  all  night  on  the 
water,  where  sound  travels  easily  and  far.  The 
British  man-of-war  Roebuck  lay  off  Red  Hook,  just 
below  Governor's  Island,  and  why  her  lookout  or 
watch  did  not  hear  this  movement  of  nine  thousand 
men,  their  artillery  and  their  transportation,  is  one 
of  the  unexplained  mysteries  of  the  time.  Howe 
pushed  into  the  city  of  New  York.  Washington  with 
drew  to  the  line  of  the  Harlem  River,  the  northern 
boundary  of  Manhattan  Island,  and  the  movements 
were  so  rapid  on  both  sides,  that  Putnam,  with  a  de 
tachment  of  four  thousand  men,  was  isolated  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  town. 


142  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Washington,  in  person,  led  two  New  England 
brigades  down  the  streets  to  rescue  Putnam,  but  on 
the  appearance  of  fifteen  or  twenty  red-coats,  eight 
regiments  ran  like  quarter  horses;  whereupon  the 
commander  in  chief,  failing  to  make  the  colonels 
stop  stampeding,  belabored  them  with  much  energy 
and  profuse  emphasis,  with  a  cane  he  was  riding  with. 
Neither  cane  nor  malediction  stayed  the  courant 
colonels;  but  a  lady — Mrs.  Murray — with  a  fine  resi 
dence  on  what  is  now  known  as  Murray  Hill,  know 
ing  the  weakness  that  commanding  officers  have  for 
the  good  things  of  the  table,  prepared  an  elegant 
and  substantial  lunch,  and  invited  Sir  William  and 
his  staff  to  alight  and  enjoy  it.  No  soldier  who  ever 
rode  a  horse  ever  refused  an  invitation  to  eat,  and 
the  British  general  stopped  to  refresh  while  his  ene 
my  escaped.  Putnam  rejoined  the  army  at  Harlem, 
and  Washington  was  extricated  by  the  very  difficult 
feat  of  withdrawing  an  inferior  army  from  its  envi 
ronment  by  a  superior  army  and  fleet.  Washington 
took  position  along  the  line  of  the  Harlem  River, 
across  the  upper  end  of  the  island,  and  the  next  day 
Howe  attempted  to  storm  the  position.  The  attack 
was  repulsed. 

The  Hudson  River  was  defended  at  the  Palisades 
above  New  York,  on  the  east  side,  by  Fort  Washing 
ton,  under  command  of  Gen.  Putnam,  and  on  the 
west  by  Fort  Lee,  under  Gen.  Greene.  Howe's  next 
move  clearly  was  to  force  the  two  forts  with  the 
fleet,  while  at  the  same  time  he  landed  an  infantry 
force  by  way  of  the  East  River  and  pushed  it  in 
Washington's  rear.  He  began  on  October  9,  1776, 
by  driving  two  frigates  over  Putnam's  and  Greene's 
obstructions  in  the  river  and  between  their  forts,  and 


THE    NEW  YORK   CAMPAIGN. 


143 


on  the  i2th  he  landed  the  larger  part  of  his  army  at 
Throg's  Neck,  to  move  in  behind  the  American,  and 
cut  his  line  of  supplies  from  Connecticut. 

Washington,  fully  anticipating  the  movement,  had 
destroyed  the  bridge  across  the  creek  at  the  place  of 
landing,  and  posted  a  sufficient  force  behind  the  marsh 
across  which  the  British  must  move  to  attack  him. 
Howe  wasted  six  days  trying  to  get  at  him,  and 
Washington  moved  back  up  the  river  to  White  Plains, 
abandoning  the  whole  of  Manhattan  Island  except 
Fort  Washington.  Howe  pushed  on  after  him,  and 
on  October  28th  carried  an  outpost  at  Chatterton 
Hill.  The  Maryland  line,  which  under  Lord  Stirling 
had  won  its  spurs  at  Brooklyn  Heights,  gathered 
fresh  laurels  here.  Attacked  by  the  Hessians  under 
Rahl,  it  held  on  until  surrounded,  and  then  forced 

its  way  out  with  clubbed  rifles  under  Griffith*.---- "It 
j  „ 

fought  six  to  one,  and  lost  one  hundred  and'"  forty, 
to  two  hundred  and  twenty-nine  lost  by  the  ienemy. 
This  affair  is  known  as  the  battle  of  White'plains. 
The  attack  was  not  pressed,  and  WashingtoVl^U-  * 
back  to  a  strong  position  at  North  Castle,  where  It 
was  useless  to  think  of  attacking  him. 

These  movements  and  the  resulting  position  made 
the  two  forts  untenable,  useless,  and  mere  traps. 
The  Congress  and  the  New  York  Convention  pro 
tested  strongly  against  abandoning  them,  as  local 
authorities  always  do  against  abandoning  territory 
to  invasion ;  but  Washington  ordered  Putnam  and 
Greene  to  get  their  troops  and  munitions  away  with 
out  delay,  allowing  Greene,  in  whom  he  had  great 
confidence,  a  discretion  as  to  the  time  and  the  ne 
cessity  of  evacuation.  Congress  sent  Greene  a  per 
emptory  order  to  hold  on  save  on  the  direst  extrem- 


I44  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

ity.  Washington  was  absent,  superintending  the 
fortification  of  West  Point,  higher  up  the  river. 
Greene  believed  that  Fort  Washington  could  be 
held,  and  so  re-enforced  it.  Washington  returned  on 
the  i4th,  but  that  very  night  several  British  vessels 
passed  up  between  the  forts,  and  on  the  i5th  Howe 
moved  on  the  place  with  an  overwhelming  force. 
He  carried  it  by  assault  on  November  i6th,  after  a 
gallant  defense,  when  the  British  lost  five  hundred 
men,  to  the  American  loss  of  one  hundred  and  fifty; 
but  the  British  general  captured  three  thousand  of 
the  best  troops  the  Americans  had  in  the  field,  and 
an  immense  quantity  of  artillery  and  small  arms. 

Washington  was  on  the  Jersey  side  of  the  river 
with  six  thousand  men,  and  Lee  on  the  east  side  with 
seven  thousand.  He  ordered  Lee  to  join  him,  but 
Lee,  then  senior  major  general  and  next  in  rank  to 
the  commander  in  chief,  dallied,  and  lost  time  in 
obeying.  His  own  ambition  and  his  own  promotion 
were  the  only  motives  for  his  conduct,  and  he  was 
engaged  in  exaggerating  his  services  in  the  Southern 
campaign  and  aggrandizing  his  reputation  among  the 
inefficient  Congressmen  at  Philadelphia.  He  was  a 
traitor  in  his  heart  then,  as  he  was  certainly  a  traitor 
in  fact  and  deed  soon  after;  but  no  proof  has  yet 
been  discovered  as  to  his  treachery  at  this  precise 
period.  It  seems  as  if  he  intended  by  his  desertion 
of  his  commander  in  chief  to  secure  his  destruction 
in  New  Jersey,  when  he  would  have  certainly  suc 
ceeded  to  the  chief  command,  and  then  might  have 
enacted  the  role  of  General  Monk  and  become  the 
Duke  of  Manhattan,  as  that  traitor  became  the  Duke 
of  Albemarle. 

But  neither  "malice  domestic,"  nor  treachery,  nor 


THE   NEW   YORK   CAMPAIGN.  14$ 

cowardice  in  subordinates,  nor  incompetence  in  Con 
gress,  could  shake  the  will,  the  patience,  the  fortitude, 
or  the  courage  of  the  man  who  had  spent  four  days 
and  nights  in  the  saddle  in  saving  Braddock's  rout. 
The  American  forces  were  nearly  disarmed  by  the 
losses  at  Fort  Washington.  It  was  almost  dispersed 
by  the  capture  of  men  there,  and  by  Lee's  deser 
tion.  If  Howe  turned  shortly  across  the  river  and 
pressed  rapidly  on  Philadelphia,  the  rebel  capital 
would  be  captured  and  the  rebel  Congress  dispersed, 
and  the  nucleus  of  rebellion  destroyed.  It  was  im 
possible  to  save  Philadelphia,  but  it  was  possible  to 
interpose  an  army  as  a  protection  to  Congress  and  as 
a  rallying  point  for  the  country.  Sir  Guy  Carleton 
had  gone  into  winter  quarters  at  St.  John's,  on  Lake 
Champlain.  The  campaign  of  division  had  failed. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

THE    NEW    JERSEY    CAMPAIGN THE    DICTATORSHIP. 

THE  conditions  which  confronted  Washington, 
then,  were  the  necessity  of  saving  New  England  and 
covering  Philadelphia  at  the  same  time  with  an  army 
demoralized  by  defeat  and  retreat,  starvation  and 
physical  want,  reduced  by  the  expiration  of  enlist 
ments,  and  without  hope  or  expectation  of  final  suc 
cess.  A  new  expedition,  under  Sir  John  Burgoyne, 
was  being  prepared  in  Canada  to  move  on  the  old 
French  line  of  invasion  by  Lake  Champlain.  Lord 
Cornwallis  was  placed  in  command  of  a  flying  column, 
to  operate  in  New  Jersey  by  a  move  on  Philadelphia, 
while  Sir  William  Howe  was  collecting  a  fleet  at 
New  York  for  an  object  as  yet  unrevealed.  It  was 
so  clear  that  he  ought  to  have  moved  a  land  force 
up  the  Hudson,  convoyed  and  supported  by  his  fleet, 
and  joined  Burgoyne,  who  was  marching  south,  that 
Washington  could  not  persuade  himself  that  he  was 
not  about  to  do  so.  His  observation  of  General 
Howe  during  the  campaign  on  Long  Island,  and  the 
subsequent  operations  on  Throg's  Neck,  White  Plains, 
and  Fort  Washington,  had  convinced  him  that  the 
British  general  was  quite  as  likely  to  make  an  im 
proper  move  as  a  proper  one,  and  he  was  therefore 
much  puzzled  to  divine  his  intentions. 

Burgoyne  captured  Ticonderoga  without  a  strug- 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  147 

gle,  and  the  northern  line  was  opened.  On  Novem 
ber  2ist  Howe  crossed  his  infantry  over  the  Hudson, 
and  then  had  the  shorter  line  to  Philadelphia.  He 
started  Cornwallis  toward  that  place,  and  nothing 
could  be  done  but  to  interpose  the  American  army 
between  the  attack  and  the  objective.  Washington 
fell  back  until,  on  December  8,  1776,  he  crossed  the 
Delaware  into  Pennsylvania  with  three  thousand 
starved,  naked,  and  badly  armed  men — the  remnant 
of  the  army  of  Boston  and  New  York,  but  with  all 
his  ammunition  intact.  He  destroyed  all  the  boats 
on  the  river  for  miles  up  and  down.  When  Corn 
wallis  came  up,  the  evening  of  the  crossing,  he  was 
for  pushing  on  at  once;  but  Howe,  who  had  joined 
him,  thought  it  not  worth  while,  as  the  contest  was 
virtually  ended,  and  it  was  useless  to  expend  un 
necessary  energy  in  pursuit  of  an  enemy  whose  army 
had  nearly  dissolved  in  the  preceding  twenty  days  of 
pursuit  and  retreat. 

Congress  fled  to  Baltimore,  where  they  passed  a 
resolution  making  Washington  dictator,  and  then 
waited,  panic-stricken,  for  what  might  happen.  At 
this  time  an  incident  occurred  which  might  have 
been  disastrous,  but  was  rather  fortunate  to  the 
American  cause.  Lee  followed  Cornwallis,  on  his 
flank,  through  New  Jersey.  He  would  not  help 
Washington.  He  could  not  desert  openly,  for  that 
would  have  destroyed  his  value,  and  he  would  have 
commanded  no  price  for  his  treachery.  An  interview 
with  the  British  commander  in  chief  was  absolutely 
necessary  to  arrange  the  terms  of  what  was  to  be 
sold  and  what  to  be  paid.  A  conference  under  a  flag 
of  truce  would  have  attracted  attention  and  required 
explanation.  Written  communications  were  tedious 
ii 


148  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

and  dangerous,  as  was  afterward  proved  in  the  case 
of  Andre  and  Arnold. 

So  Lee,  with  that  profuse  versatility  of  resource 
and  that  wide  experience  of  expedients  which  service 
under  many  flags  and  divers  religions  and  in  various 
countries  had  given  him,  resorted  to  the  simple  one 
of  camping  outside  his  picket  lines  and  sending  word 
to  the  nearest  British  picket  where  he  was.  He  was, 
of  course,  gobbled  up  by  the  cavalry,  and  the  second 
in  command  of  the  Continental  army  became  a  pris 
oner.  He  had  his  conference  and  arranged  his  terms. 
What  they  were  has  not  yet  been  discovered,  but 
Time,  the  inexorable  foe  to  secrets  and  concealments 
of  state  matters,  will  surely  reveal  his  entire  turpitude. 
Within  this  generation  there  has  been  discovered 
among  the  family  papers  of  Sir  Henry  Strachey, 
General  Howe's  secretary  from  1775  to  1778,  a  docu 
ment  in  Lee's  handwriting  and  indorsed  by  Sir  Henry 
— "  Mr.  Lee's  plan,  March  29,  1777."  * 

In  this  paper  Lee  shows  that,  if  Maryland  could 
be  overawed  and  the  people  of  Virginia  prevented 
from  sending  aid  to  Pennsylvania,  then  Philadelphia 
might  be  taken  and  held,  and  the  operations  of  the 
"  rebel  government "  paralyzed.  The  Tory  party 
was  known  to  be  strong  in  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
hesitation  and  tardiness  of  Maryland  in  acquiescing 
in  the  move  for  independence  seemed  to  prove  that 
the  loyalist  feeling  was  very  strong  there.  Lee  as 
serted,  of  his  own  personal  knowledge — he  owned  a 
plantation  on  the  upper  Potomac,  in  Virginia,  on  the 
Maryland  border — that  the  people  of  Maryland  and 
Pennsylvania  were  nearly  all  loyalists,  who  only 

*  Vide  Appendix  A. 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  149 

awaited  a  British  army  to  declare  themselves  for  the 
Government  and  King  George. 

He  therefore  recommended  that  fourteen  thou 
sand  men  should  drive  Washington  out  of  New  Jer 
sey  and  capture  Philadelphia,  while  the  remainder  of 
Howe's  army,  four  thousand  in  number,  should  go 
by  sea  to  the  Chesapeake  and  occupy  Alexandria 
and  Annapolis.  Four  days  after  the  date  of  this  re 
markable  document  Howe  wrote  to  Lord  George 
Germaine  that  he  had  another  expedition  in  mind, 
which  might  modify  the  plan  of  the  campaign  of  the 
Hudson.  With  this  paper  in  the  hands  of  the  British 
commander  in  chief,  Lee  was  exchanged,  and  received 
in  the  American  army  with  distinguished  honors.  All 
the  general  officers  went  out  to  meet  him  and  escort 
him  to  headquarters,  and  the  entire  body  of  troops 
was  paraded  to  salute  him;  and  he  in  the  pay  of  the 
enemy,  with  the  commission  of  second  in  command 
of  the  American  army  in  his  pocket  ! 

Whatever  judgment  posterity  and  the  world  may 
pass  on  the  motives  or  the  conduct  of  the  actors 
in  the  great  war  between  the  States  of  i86i-'65, 
Americans  at  all  times  will  be  proud  of  the  great 
pregnant  fact,  that  when  the  men  conspicuous  on 
each  side  in  that  Titanic  struggle  had  once  taken 
sides  not  one  ever  faltered  in  his  faith,  but  all  were 
firm  to  the  end.  Among  the  million  of  Americans  in 
that  war,  arrayed  in  arms,  not  one  Charles  Lee  or 
Benedict  Arnold  ever  lived  or  died.  This  proves 
that  the  American  has,  in  the  intervening  century, 
developed  a  higher  s'tandard  of  duty,  a  nobler  ideal 
of  fidelity  to  honor,  than  prevailed  with  the  genera 
tion  that  made  and  fought  the  War  of  the  Revolution. 

The  capture  of  Lee  was  a  great  surprise  to,  and 


150  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

made  a  profound  impression  on,  the  Americans.  He 
was  a  showy,  noisy  swash-buckler,  and  his  loud  voice 
and  blatant  braggadocio  had  imposed  on  the  public. 
He  had  been  a  lieutenant  colonel  in  the  British  army, 
had  served  under  kings  and  emperors,  and  was  dec 
orated  with  sundry  ribbons  and  brummagem  stars  and 
crosses,  and  the  simple-minded  country  folk  thought 
he  must  of  necessity  be  a  great  soldier.  This  provin 
cial  admiration  for  the  ways  and  habits  and  manners 
and  morals  of  the  aristocracy  is  not  yet  extinct  among 
Americans,  and  may  still  be  observed  flourishing  on 
Manhattan  Island,  or  at  Newport,  Rhode  Island. 

Washington  was  absolutely  destitute  of  it.  His 
experience  in  the  Braddock  campaign  had  obliterated 
the  sentiment  of  reverence  and  admiration  for  home 
people  and  home  ways  in  which  he  had  been  bred, 
and  he  believed  and  knew  that  Americans  were  in 
heart,  brain,  muscle,  fidelity — in  every  intellectual 
and  moral  attribute — the  peers  of  any  race  who  ever 
lived.  He  considered  Arnold,  Morgan,  and  Greene 
as  good  soldiers  and  as  qualified  generals  as  Sir  John 
Burgoyne,  or  Lord  Cornwallis,  or  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 
Rank  and  titles  did  not  confuse  his  mind  in  the  least, 
and  he  looked  straight  through  all  embellishments 
into  the  very  hearts  of  men  and  of  things.  Lee  was, 
however,  second  in  command,  and  the  cause  would 
lose  prestige,  and  the  army  morale,  if  its  second  officer 
were  permitted  to  remain  a  prisoner  of  war.  He 
therefore  exchanged  Lee,  not  because  he  considered 
him  of  value,  but  in  loyal  discharge  of  his  duty  to 
his  comrade  and  the  cause. 

By  the  middle  of  December,  Howe,  believing 
that  the  rebellion  was  crushed,  withdrew  to  New 
York,  leaving  strong  detachments  at  Trenton  and 


BATTLE   OF 
TRENTON 


THE   NEW   JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  j  5  r 

Burlington.  Cornwallis  accompanied  him,  with  the 
intention  of  carrying  the  news  of  the  great  achieve 
ment  to  England.  After  the  capture  of  Lee,  Sulli 
van  and  Gates  promptly  reported  with  his  command 
to  Washington,  who  was  thus  re-enforced  to  about 
six  thousand  men.  But  he  dare  not  remain  idle. 
Congress  had  dispersed,  and  the  army  was  dissolv 
ing.  He  determined  on  an  aggressive  movement, 
the  daring  of  which  would  greatly  increase  the  chance 
of  success.  He  arranged  a  plan  of  attack — for  Gates 
to  cross  the  river  and  attack  Donop  at  Burlington ; 
Ewing  to  cross  directly  on  Trenton  ;  while  he,  with 
twenty-four  hundred  men,  was  to  pass  the  river  nine 
miles  above  and  move  down  to  support  Ewing  in  his 
attack  on  Rahl  and  his  Hessians.  Gates  begged  for 
a  leave  of  absence,  and  left  his  command  in  charge 
of  John  Cadwalader,  while  he  posted  to  Baltimore  to 
intrigue  for  promotion  into  Congress. 

Washington  proposed  to  move  on  Christmas  Day, 
1776;  but  the  weather  became  very  cold,  the  river 
rilled  with  floating  ice.  Cadwalader  tried  in  vain  to 
get  over,  but  the  ice  prevented.  Ewing,  deterred  by 
the  weather,  did  not  attempt  to  move,  and  by  even 
ing  the  commander  in  chief  knew  that  the  attack 
must  be  abandoned  unless  he  attempted  it  unsup 
ported  either  on  his  right  or  his  left.  It  was  a  con 
dition  which  required  the  greatest  risk ;  for  to  do 
nothing  was  defeat,  and  to  fail  was  nothing  less. 
During  the  night  of  the  25th  he  crossed  in  a  blind 
ing  storm  of  sleet  and  snow,  and  led  his  forlorn  hope 
in  person.  He  reached  the  other  bank,  nine  miles 
above  Trenton,  and  pressed  swiftly  down  by  two 
roads  on  the  point  of  attack.  Sullivan  led  one  col 
umn  down  the  river  road,  and  Greene  the  other  on 


152  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  road  to  the  left,  accompanied  by  General  Wash 
ington  himself. 

About  daylight  Sullivan  reported  that  his  mus 
kets  had  been  rendered  useless  by  the  wet.  The 
reply  was,  "  Tell  the  general  to  give  them  the  bayo 
net.  The  town  must  be  carried."  At  daylight  they 
struck  the  enemy's  pickets,  and  went  into  the  town 
with  them.  The  surprise  was  complete.  Washing 
ton's  guns  commanded  the  streets  of  the  town  be 
fore  the  garrison  could  be  formed ;  the  commanding 
officer,  Rahl,  was  killed ;  a  small  force  of  Yagers  and 
light  dragoons  escaped,  and  the  rest  were  captured; 
one  thousand  prisoners,  with  their  arms,  equipage, 
and  wagons,  were  taken.  Washington  immediately 
withdrew  across  the  river  with  his  spoils.  By  noon 
of  the  2yth  Cadwalader  crossed  at  Burlington,  but 
Donop  fell  back  to  Princeton,  leaving  his  sick  and 
wounded  and  all  his  heavy  arms  and  baggage.  Wash 
ington  reoccupied  Trenton  on  the  29th.  When  the 
news  of  the  catastrophe  reached  New  York,  Corn- 
wallis  countermanded  his  luggage  from  the  packet 
which  was  about  to  convey  him  to  England,  and 
rode  in  a  gallop  to  Princeton,  where  he  found  Col 
onel  Donop  intrenching. 

On  January  2,  1777,  Cornwallis,  with  eight  thou 
sand  men,  moved  on  Trenton,  where  he  found  Wash 
ington  strongly  posted  behind  the  Assunpink,  a 
small  stream  which  flows  into  the  Delaware  just 
south  of  Trenton.  Cornwallis's  men  were  worn 
down  by  the  day's  march,  but  he  made  several  at 
tempts  to  force  the  bridge  over  the  creek,  and  was 
easily  repulsed.  He  therefore  went  into  camp,  and 
sent  back  to  Princeton  for  the  two  thousand  men 
left  there  with  Donop.  He  proposed,  the  next  morn- 


THE   NEW   JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  153 

ing,  with  this  re-enforcement  to  turn  the  American 
right  flank,  roll  him  back  on  the  river,  and  capture 
the  whole  force — "  to  bag  the  old  fox,"  as  he  said. 
The  position  was  plain  to  the  American  commander. 
Donop  would  be  up  the  next  day,  and  then  he 
would  have  another  Long  Island  retreat  over  a  wide 
river.  Instead  of  waiting  for  Donop,  it  might  be 
best  to  meet  him  half  way.  He  summoned  a  coun 
cil  of  war;  but  a  council  of  war  never  fights.  He 
proposed  to  leave  his  camp-fires  burning,  and  move 
around  Cornwallis  so  as  to  strike  Princeton  by  day 
break.  It  had  been  snowing,  sleeting,  and  raining 
for  several  days.  The  chief  of  artillery  reported 
that  guns  could  not  be  moved ;  the  quartermaster 
general  that  no  horses  could  pull  the  wagons. 
Everybody  agreed  that  the  roads  had  no  bottom. 
Washington  held  on  to  his  opinion  with  his  usual 
patience  and  pertinacity,  explaining  what  immense 
advantages  would  accrue  from  the  movement,  and 
persistently  urged  that  it  be  made.  By  ten  o'clock 
the  change  occurred  that  he  expected  and  was  wait 
ing  for.  He  opened  the  door,  looked  out  into  the 
night  starless  and  moonless,  and  turned  to  the  coun 
cil.  "  Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "  Providence  has  de 
cided  for  us — the  wind  has  shifted;  the  army  will, 
move  in  two  hours."  In  two  hours  the  roads  were 
frozen  as  hard  as  if  macadamized,  and  the  troops 
marched  over  the  firm  ground,  the  wheels  muffled 
and  as  noiseless  as  the  march  of  the  dead. 

At  daylight  Cornwallis's  pickets  reported  that 
something  unusual  had  taken  place  in  the  American 
camp,  and  his  scouts  soon  brought  him  word  that  it 
was  empty.  He  was  dazed.  "Where  had  the  old 
fox  gone  to  earth  ?  Where  was  his  hiding-place  ? " 


154 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


were  the  astounding  questions  he  was  to  solve,  when 
away  off  to  the  northeast  the  opening  guns  at  Prince 
ton  sounded  his  sharp  reveille.  He  had  been  sur 
prised  as  Rahl  had  been,  and  outwitted  as  Sir  Wil 
liam  at  Long  Island. 

About  sunrise  Washington's  advance  came  in 
contact  with  Donop's  leading  brigade  marching  on 
Trenton  to  help  Cornwallis.  General  Hugh  Mercer, 
the  aid  to  Prince  Charlie  at  Culloden,  and  the  com 
rade  of  the  commander  in  chief  at  the  Monongahela, 
was  in  command  of  the  right  brigade,  and  he  at 
tacked  at  once.  The  British  resistance  was  vigorous, 
and  they  pressed  Mercer  firmly.  He  was  killed  at 
the  outset,  and  his  lines  were  going  back  before  the 
British  bayonet,  wrhen  Washington  galloped  up,  took 
charge  of  the  field,  rallied  his  troops  within  forty 
yards  of  the  British  line,  brought  the  whole  of  his 
command  into  action  on  the  double  quick,  and  in 
twenty  minutes  had  the  enemy  on  the  run.  The 
British  lost  two  hundred  in  killed  and  wounded,  and 
three  hundred  prisoners.  The  firing  to  the  northeast 
stirred  Cornwallis  up,  and  he  pushed  out  to  get  to 
Princeton  as  soon  as  possible.  But  a  thaw  had  set 
in,  the  bridges  were  broken,  the  roads  and  streams 
impassable,  and  by  the  time  he  reached  Princeton 
"  the  old  fox  "  had  disappeared  with  his  plunder. 

It  was  Washington's  intention  to  swoop  down  on 
New  Brunswick,  where  there  was  a  depot  of  pro 
visions,  arms,  and  supplies;  but  by  the  time  the 
affair  at  Princeton  was  over  the  men  were  too  tired 
for  further  exertion.  They  had  had  no  sleep  the 
night  before,  and  the  cold  night  march  and  the  sharp 
affair  of  the  morning  had  taken  the  spring  out  of 
them.  They  must  have  refreshment  and  rest.  In- 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  155 

stead,  therefore,  of  making  a  dash  on  New  Bruns 
wick,  the  American  general  moved  off  to  Morris- 
town,  where  he  occupied  a  strong  position  on  a 
range  of  hills.  Cornwallis  pressed  on  to  New 
Brunswick,  intent  on  saving  that  post.  In  a  few 
days  Putnam  moved  from  Philadelphia  to  Princeton. 

By  the  middle  of  January,  1777,  this  then  was  the 
position :  the  American  right  wing  under  Putnam, 
at  Princeton ;  the  center  under  Washington,  at  Mor- 
ristown  ;  the  left  under  Heath,  on  the  Hudson.  The 
British  retained  only  New  Brunswick,  Amboy,  and 
Paulus  Hook  (Jersey  City).  The  occupation  of 
Jersey  had  failed,  the  attempt  on  the  "  rebel  Capi 
tal  "  had  been  frustrated,  and,  after  two  years  of 
struggle  "  to  retake,  reoccupy,  and  repossess,"  and 
to  reduce  to  loyalty  the  rebellious  colonies,  the 
three  posts  in  New  Jersey  above  named  were  all 
that  remained  to  show  for  results. 

This  campaign  was  the  most  brilliant  one  of  the 
War  of  the  Revolution.  Stonewall  Jackson's  valley 
campaign,  in  1862,  reminds  the  military  student  of  it. 
Cornwallis — the  ablest  soldier  that  Britain  furnished 
— gentleman  and  knight  as  he  was,  generously  ex 
pressed  his  admiration  for  it.  Stedman,  his  histo 
rian  and  comrade,  considers  that  Washington's  most 
remarkable  and  strongest  marked  characteristic  was 
his  supreme  and  unfaltering  courage.  To  cross  a 
wide  and  rapid  river  in  winter,  by  night,  with  an 
inferior,  half-clad  and  half-fed  force,  surprise  and 
capture  a  veteran  command  of  regulars,  to  make  off 
with  his  booty,  and  then  reoccupy  his  position  in 
front  of  Cornwallis  with  thrice  his  numbers,  fight 
him,  hold  him  back,  elude  him  and  strike  his  rear, 
and  make  him  give  up  all  the  territory  won  by  the 


156  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

preceding  campaign,  was  an  achievement  of  tactics 
and  of  strategy,  of  endurance  and  of  courage,  which 
nothing  but  supreme  audacity,  pugnacity,  and  cour 
age  could  accomplish. 

The  same  characteristics  were  afterward  observed 
in  Robert  E.  Lee,  son  of  "  Light  Horse  Harry  "  Lee, 
of  the  Legion,  no  kin  to  the  vain  braggart,  coward, 
and  traitor  who  tried  to  lose  the  Battle  of  Monmouth 
and  to  sell  the  American  army.  Robert  Lee's  friends 
were  wont  to  criticise  his  pugnacity  and  daring. 
They  said  he  would  run  any  risk  for  a  fight.  The 
courage  displayed  by  Washington  in  this  short  cam 
paign,  not  the  physical  courage  of  the  fighter  but  the 
intellectual  intrepidity  of  the  thinker,  at  once  won 
him  the  respect  of  military  men  and  military  nations 
all  over  the  world,  and,  what  was  of  equal  im 
portance,  the  confidence  of  the  people  at  home. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  a  widespread 
dissatisfaction  with  his  caution  and  his  slowness. 
The  gentlemen  who  sit  at  a  safe  distance  study 
ing  the  map,  unshaken  by  responsibility,  always 
know  more  about  war  than  the  generals  who  are 
fighting  it,  and  are  liberal  with  their  advice — after 
the  event.  The  debaters  are  the  most  impatient  for 
action  by  others. 

The  dispersion  of  the  debating  society  at  Phila 
delphia  had  silenced  them  for  a  time,  and  panic  had 
made  them  shift  all  responsibility  from  themselves, 
by  conferring  on  Washington  the  powers  of  dictator 
ship.  .  But  this  was  no  proof  of  confidence.  On  the 
contrary,  it  was  intended  by  very  many  as  a  trap,  to 
prove  the  utter  incompetence  of  the  commander  in 
chief,  and  make  way  for  superseding  him  in  com 
mand.  Charles  Lee  and  Gates  were  both  intriguing, 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  157 

and  undermining  and  depreciating  the  ability  of  their 
chief.  But  the  New  Jersey  campaign  settled  all  that, 
and  public  confidence  arose  to  support  Washington 
to  such  an  extent  that,  when  subsequently  a  wretched 
cabal  in  the  army  was  formed  to  depose  him,  pub 
licity  was  the  only  punishment  required  to  over 
whelm  the  parties  to  it  with  shame,  confusion,  and 
ignominy.  Confidence  at  home  and  reputation 
abroad  were  the  consequences  to  Washington  and  the 
cause.  But  reputation  and  confidence  did  not  fur 
nish  meat,  rations,  breeches,  or  shoes. 

The  Christmas  gift  by  Washington  to  the  Con 
gress  saved  the  Revolution.  The  terms  of  enlist 
ment  of  a  majority  of  his  troops  expired  on  the 
ist  of  January;  but  with  provisions  abundant,  the 
plunder  of  the  Hessian  quarters  and  knapsacks  in 
hand,  and  the  glorious  enthusiasm  of  victory  thrill 
ing  every  nerve,  the  soldiers  were  induced  to  stay 
a  few  weeks  longer.  Washington  made  himself 
personally  liable  for  their  pay,  and  pledged  his  entire 
estate  to  secure  it.  John  Stark  and  others  followed 
his  example,  and  the  army  was  held  together  on  a 
halt  before  final  dissolution. 

Washington  was  untiring  in  his  petitions  to  Con 
gress  and  to  the  States.  He  appealed  to  Governor 
Johnson,  of  Maryland,  his  associate  in  the  Ohio  and 
in  the  Potomac  companies,  who  had  nominated  him 
in  Congress  to  be  commander  in  chief,  for  im 
mediate  and  prompt  re-enforcements.  "  I  have  no 
army,"  he  said.  "  The  men  with  me  are  too  few 
to  fight,  and  not  enough  to  run  away  with."  He 
urged  Patrick  Henry,  Governor  of  Virginia,  and 
Jonathan  Trumbull,  Governor  of  Connecticut,  in 
the  same  terms.  On  March  6th  he  wrote  to  Gov- 


158  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

ernor  Trumbull  from  Morristown  :  "  I  tell  you  in  con 
fidence  that  after  the  i5th  of  this  month,  when  the 
time  of  General  Lincoln's  militia  expires,  I  shall  be 
left  with  the  remains  of  five  Virginia  regiments,  not 
amounting  to  more  than  as  many  hundred  men,  and 
parts  of  two  or  three  other  Continental  battalions, 
all  very  weak.  The  remainder  of  the  army  will  be 
composed  of  small  parties  of  militia  from  this  State 
(New  Jersey)  and  Pennsylvania,  on  which  little  de 
pendence  can  be  put,  as  they  come  and  go  when 
they  please." 

On  March  i4th,  also  from  Morristown,  Washing 
ton  wrote  to  the  President  of  Congress :  "  From  the 
most  accurate  estimate  I  can  now  form,  the  whole  of 
our  numbers  in  Jersey  fit  for  duty  at  this  time  is 
under  three  thousand.  These,  nine  hundred  and 
eighty-one  excepted,  are  militia,  and  stand  engaged 
only  until  the  last  of  this  month."  Thus  he  had,  as 
the  sole  remnant  of  the  Continental  military  strength, 
about  five  hundred  Virginians  and  four  hundred  and 
eighty-one  Marylanders.  That  was  almost  all  that 
remained  of  the  rebellion.  New  England  was  quiet, 
New  York  and  New  Jersey  nearly  hostile,  and  Penn 
sylvania  utterly  indifferent. 

When  Captain  Morris's  troop  of  Philadelphia 
Light  Horse  tour  of  duty  as  escort  at  headquarters 
had  expired,  they  were  relieved  with  a  compli 
mentary  order  they  and  their  descendants  may  well 
be  proud  of.  "  I  take  this  opportunity,"  said  the  order 
of  the  commander  in  chief,  "  of  returning  my  most 
sincere  thanks  to  the  captain  and  to  the  gentle 
men  who  compose  the  troop  for  the  many  essential 
services  which  they  have  rendered  to  their  country, 
and  to  me  personally,  during  the  course  of  this 


THE    NEW   JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  i$g 

severe  campaign.  Though  composed  of  gentlemen 
of  fortune,  they  have  shown  a  noble  example  of 
discipline  and  subordination,  and  in  several  actions 
have  displayed  a  spirit  of  bravery  which  will  ever  do 
honor  to  them,  and  will  ever  be  gratefully  remem 
bered  by  me." 

And  with  the  Light  Horse  went  the  brightest  spark 
of  chivalry  from  Pennsylvania  in  the  army.  The  phil 
osophy  of  Penn  had  taught  that  thrift,  energy,  and 
the  accumulation  of  material  means,  with  peace, 
order,  and  prosperity,  are  the  main  objects  of  life 
and  the  chief  end  of  man  ;  and  the  consequence  was 
the  commonwealth  could  not  understand  why  such 
imaginary,  remote,  iridescent,  impalpable  things  as 
justice,  right,  and  liberty  could  be  worth  the  sacrifice 
of  present  comfort,  of  fat  beeves,  of  well-fed  swine, 
and  even  risk  of  bodily  hurt.  The  idea  did  not  pene 
trate  the  bucolic  mind  during  the  whole  war,  and  the 
Philadelphia  troop  is  the  most  picturesque,  chivalric 
exhibition  of  sentiment,  devotion,  and  courage  made 
from  that  State  during  all  those  trying  times.  That 
troop  proved  time  and  again,  as  Lee's  and  Washing 
ton's  Legion  subsequently  proved  in  the  Carolinas, 
that  there  is  room  in  society  for  the  order  of  gentle 
men,  and  that  in  time  of  stress  it  is  well  for  the 
State  to  have  a  class  to  call  on  who  will  die  as  gayly 
as  they  dance,  and  will  pour  out  their  blood,  as  they 
were  wont  to  do  their  fortunes,  for  faith  and  honor, 
for  sentiment  and  ideals.  Three  battalions  of  Asso- 
ciators  were  raised  in  Philadelphia,  officered  by  Col 
onels  John  Bayard,  John  Cadwalader,  and  Jacob  Mor 
gan,  knightly  gentlemen,  and  did  gallant  service. 
They  and  the  Light  Horse  are  the  most  brilliant 
contributions  of  Pennsylvania  to  the  cause. 


160  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

To  Washington,  with  his  nine  hundred,  Johnson 
brought  seventeen  hundred  from  Maryland.  They 
were  not  very  effective,  but  they  were  courage  and 
sympathy,  hearts  as  well  as  hands,  like  a  torch  to  the 
lost  traveler  in  the  desert.  They  upheld  the  spirit  of 
resistance  until  the  country  along  the  Chesapeake 
could  rally ;  for  it  had  come  to  be  that  the  chief  re 
sistance  was  henceforth  to  be  made  by  the  English 
on  the  Chesapeake.  New  England  stood  ready,  pre 
pared  to  repel  invasion  and  expel  intruders.  John 
Stark  did  the  first  at  Bennington,  Benedict  Arnold 
the  last  for  a  British  raid  on  Danbury,  Connecticut. 

Washington  remained  in  winter  quarters  at  Mor- 
ristown,  watching  his  enemy  at  New  York.  The 
junction  of  Howe  with  Burgoyne  in  upper  New  York 
was  of  prime  importance,  but  the  occupation  of  the 
"rebel  capital"  at  Philadelphia,  the  permanent  dis 
persion  of  the  rebel  Congress,  and  the  separation  of 
the  Eastern  and  Middle  States  from  the  Southern, 
was  of  equal  value.  New  England  paralyzed,  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  indifferent, 
Georgia  "  restored  "  to  loyalty  ;  the  Tories  of  North 
and  South  Carolina  gave  full  occupation  to  the  Whigs 
of  those  States,  so  that  they  were  unable  to  re- 
enforce  the  nucleus  of  opposition,  the  Continental 
Army.  Sir  William  Howe  may  well  have  argued  that 
a  division  of  the  rebellion  on  the  line  of  the  Dela 
ware  was  infinitely  more  pregnant  of  results  than 
that  on  the  Hudson. 

The  Southern  States  subdued,  the  Eastern  and 
Middle  States  cut  off  and  neutralized,  the  rebellion 
on  the  Chesapeake  and  the  gallant  three  counties  on 
the  Delaware  would  have  been  easily  crushed  under 
the  guns  of  the  British  fleet.  The  great  bays,  the 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  j6i 

wide  and  deep  rivers,  gave  the  command  of  the 
water  entire  control  over  the  land.  So  Washington 
watched  and  waited.  Howe  might  move  up  the 
North  River,  or  up  the  Delaware,  or  up  the  Chesa 
peake.  Either  move  might  be  disastrous  to  the 
American  cause.  Each  must  be  met  and  defeated. 

The  county  committees  in  lower  New  Jersey,  in 
lower  Delaware,  on  the  eastern  shore  of  Maryland 
and  Virginia,  were  notified  to  keep  a  sharp  lookout 
night  and  day  for  the  fleet,  and  to  report  its  appear 
ance  and  progress  as  soon  as  it  was  identified.  Lines 
of  couriers  were  provided  from  county  to  county  to 
transmit  the  news  to  headquarters. 

On  April  isth,  Washington  wrote  from  Morris- 
town  to  Landon  Carter :  "  The  designs  of  the  enemy 
are  not  yet  clearly  unfolded,  but  Philadelphia  is  the 
object  in  view  ;  however,  this  may  or  may  not  be 
the  case,  as  the  North  River  must  also  be  the  object 
of  very  great  importance  to  them,  while  they  have 
an  army  in  Canada  and  are  desirous  of  a  junction 
with  it."  On  May  28th,  he  moved  from  Morristown 
to  Middlebrook,  fifteen  miles  south,  on  the  Raritan 
River.  The  army  then  consisted -of  forty-three  regi 
ments  in  ten  brigades  and  five  divisions,  under  Major 
Generals  Nathanael  Greene,  Adam  Stephen,  John 
Sullivan,  Benjamin  Lincoln,  and  Lord  Stirling.  The 
artillery  was  under  Henry  Knox.  They  mustered 
about  seven  thousand  men,  mostly  militia,  from  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Maryland,  and  Vir 
ginia.  The  New  York  and  Eastern  troops  were 
guarding  the  line  of  the  Hudson  and  Lake  Cham- 
plain  chiefly  at  Peekskill  and  Ticonderoga. 

On  July  ist,  Washington  wrote  to  Putnam  from 
Middlebrook,  and  on  the  4th  to  Governor  Trumbull, 


162  GENERAL  WASHINGTON.    - 

that  Howe  was  in  motion,  and  "  that,  upon  the  whole, 
there  is  the  strongest  reason  to  conclude  that  he  will 
push  up  the  river  immediately  to  co-operate  with 
the  army  from  Canada,  which  it  appears  certainly 
has  in  view  an  attack  on  Ticonderoga  and  the  several 
dependent  posts."  At  the  same  time  he  moved  back 
to  Morristown,  to  be  in  position  for  "  succoring  the 
Eastern  States,  and  to  be  near  enough  to  oppose  any 
design  upon  Philadelphia."  In  a  week  news  arrived 
from  Schuyler,  in  command  on  the  upper  Hudson,  of 
the  evacuation  of  Ticonderoga  and  its  occupation 
by  Burgoyne.  Washington  moved  out  of  Morris- 
town  to  Pompton  Plains,  and  then  farther  on  toward 
the  Hudson.  It  had  then,  in  his  opinion,  become  so 
plainly  the  policy  of  Howe  to  co-operate  with  Bur 
goyne  that  he  prepared  to  support  the  force  at  Peeks- 
kill  on  the  Hudson. 

Howe  had  collected  a  fleet  of  one  hundred  and 
twenty  vessels  at  New  York.  By  the  last  of  July 
he  put  to  sea.  At  the  same  time  Putnam  captured  a 
dispatch  from  Howe  to  Burgoyne,  advising  him  that 
the  fleet  was  to  go  eastward  to  Boston.  Putnam 
sent  the  captured  dispatch  to  headquarters.  Wash 
ington  understood  the  ruse  at  once.  The  dispatch 
was  intended  to  deceive  and  to  be  captured.  It  said 
the  enemy  was  to  move  northeast — that  meant  was 
really  to  move  southwest.  Without  a  moment's  hesi 
tation  he  ordered  Sullivan's  and  Heath's  divisions  to 
cross  the  Hudson  and  march  to  Philadelphia.  Howe 
appeared  at  the  Capes  of  the  Delaware.  Washington 
moved  over  to  that  river,  but  it  was  so  clearly  the 
interest  of  Howe  to  join  hands  with  Burgoyne,  that, 
as  he  wrote  to  Gates,  he  "could  not  help  casting  his 
eyes  continually  behind  him." 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  163 

Washington  pressed  on  and  took  position  at 
Chester,  fifteen  miles  below  Philadelphia.  But  on 
August  ist  he  received  news  by  express  that  on  the 
day  before  the  enemy  had  sailed  out  of  the  Capes  in 
an  easterly  course.  After  a  week's  delay,  and  not 
hearing  of  Howe,  he  started  the  army  back  toward 
the  Hudson.  He  camped  for  a  few  days  at  Schuylkill 
Falls,  five  miles  north  of  Philadelphia,  and  hearing 
nothing  of  Howe's  fleet,  on  August  8th  the  whole 
army  started  back  for  the  East,  with  about  eleven 
thousand  men,  mostly  militia,  "  badly  armed  and 
worse  clothed,"  as  Lafayette,  who  then  joined  for 
the  first  time,  recorded  in  his  journal.  On  August 
loth,  at  night,  a  dispatch  was  received  from  the 
President  of  Congress  that  the  fleet  had  been  seen 
off  Sinepuxent,  on  the  ocean  side  of  the  eastern 
shore  of  Maryland,  on  the  yth  instant. 

The  army  was  then  at  Neshaminy  camp,  twenty 
miles  north  of  Philadelphia,  on  the  Old  York  road, 
where  it  halted  until  further  information  should  be 
obtained  of  Howe.  From  here  he  sent  Morgan  and 
his  riflemen  to  Gates,  who  had  been  assigned  to  the 
Northern  army,  then  being  assembled  about  Albany, 
to  intercept  Burgoyne.  Washington  was  of  opinion 
that  Howe's  object  was  Charleston,  "  though  for 
what  sufficient  reason,  unless  he  expected  to  drag 
this  army  after  him,  by  appearing  at  different  places, 
and  thereby  leave  the  country  open  for  General 
Clinton  to  march  out  and  endeavor  to  form  a  junc 
tion  with  General  Burgoyne,  I  am  at  a  loss  to  de 
termine,"  as  he  wrote  to  Gates  on  August  2oth. 

The  next  day  a  council  of  war  decided  that,  as 
the   enemy's    fleet    had    most    probably    sai 
Charleston,  it   was  not   expedient  for  the 

12 


164  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

march  southward,  and  that  it  should  move  immedi 
ately  toward  the  North  River.  The  next  day  the 
fleet  was  reported  sailing  up  the  Chesapeake.  Sulli 
van  was  ordered  to  rejoin  with  his  division  as 
promptly  as  possible,  and  the  next  morning  every 
thing  was  put  on  the  march  for  Philadelphia  and 
onward.  He  informed  the  troops,  in  a  general  order, 
of  Stark's  brilliant  victory  at  Bennington  on  the 
i6th  of  August. 

On  Sunday,  August  24th,  part  of  the  army, 
amounting  to  ten  thousand  men,  with  Washington 
at  its  head,  marched  through  Philadelphia,  down 
Front  Street  to  Chestnut  to  the  Common,  and  crossed 
the  Schuylkill  at  the  Middle  Ferry,  Market  Street. 
They  were  followed  next  day  by  General  Francis 
Nash's  North  Carolina  Brigade  and  Colonel  Proctor's 
Brigade  of  Artillery.  They  made  a  fine  impression 
with  their  solid  marching  and  seasoned  appearance 
and  with  green  leaves  in  their  hats,  though  they  were 
dirty  and  ragged,  and  were  a  revelation  to  the  faint 
hearted  Whigs  and  jubilant  Tories,  who  had  no  idea 
that  the  rebels  could  muster  such  a  force  of  fighting 
men.  He  pressed  on  through  Wilmington,  where  he 
heard  that  Howe  was  landing  eighteen  thousand  men 
at  the  head  of  the  bay.  Washington  proceeded  with 
all  his  cavalry  up  to  the  enemy's  lines,  to  reconnoitre 
his  position  and  his  force,  and  employed  the  next 
three  days  in  acquiring  personal  knowledge  of  the 
roads  and  topography. 

Howe  landed  on  August  25th,  and  by  September 
yth  had  moved  only  seven  miles.  The  American 
army  fell  back  to  Chadd's  Ford,  over  the  Brandywine, 
a  small  stream  thirteen  miles  north  of  Wilmington, 
where  it  awaited  the  British  attack.  The  position 


Dilworth 


FORMATION  BEFORE  THE 

BATTLE  OF 
BRANDY  WINE 


BATTLE  OF 

BRANDY  WINE 


Gen.  Howe's 
Headquarters 


/  \ 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  165 

on  the  north  side  overlooked  that  on  the  south,  and 
during  the  day  it  became  apparent  that  the  skirmish 
at  the  ford  opposite  the  American  center  was  a  feint 
to  cover  some  ulterior  purpose.  The  British  army 
numbered  eighteen  thousand  men,  the  American 
about  eleven  thousand.  Wayne,  with  the  artillery, 
held  the  center,  and  Greene  was  in  reserve,  with  Sulli 
van  on  the  right  and  Armstrong  on  the  left.  Dur 
ing  the  morning  it  got  to  be  understood  that  the 
body  of  troops  in  front  of  the  ford  in  plain  sight  was 
Knyphausen  with  his  Hessians,  and  after  a  time  re 
ports  began  to  come  in  from  scouts  that  a  heavy 
column  was  moving  round  the  right  toward  the  upper 
forks  of  the  Brandywine.  The  enemy  had  therefore 
divided  his  force  while  within  striking  distance,  and 
Washington  promptly  gave  orders  to  Greene  to  cross 
and  attack,  supported  by  Wayne. 

The  movement  was  precisely  that  of  McDowell 
at  First  Manassas,  and  of  Jackson  at  Chancellors- 
ville.  Beauregard's  countermove  to  his  adversary 
was  to  cross  Bull  Run  and  attack  his  reserve  and 
trains  at  Centerville.  This  would  have  been  success 
ful,  but  was  not  made  on  account  of  an  inexplicable 
accident.  There  is  no  record  of  Hooker's  intention 
or  attempt  to  countercheck  Lee's  move  with  Jack 
son  at  Chancellorsville.  When  troops  are  in  actual 
contact — when  men  see  each  other  and  are  firing  at 
each  other — it  is  difficult  to  disengage  and  perform 
military  evolutions.  None  but  disciplined,  and  vet 
eran  troops  can  "  change  front  under  fire." 

By  the  time,  then,  the  formations  were  being  made 
to  cross  the  creek  and  attack,  news  came  that  there 
was  no  British  column  moving  round  the  right  flank, 
and  the  order  to  advance  was  countermanded.  In 


1 66  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

an  hour  another  report  of  the  flank  march  would 
come  in,  and  preparation  be  made  for  an  advance, 
and  then  another  contradiction.  There  was  no 
American  cavalry  to  scout  or  to  carry  information — 
only  a  headquarter  escort  of  mounted  men. 

In  some  countries — in  every  country  where  people 
are  alert,  enthusiastic,  hot-blooded — tidings  of  an  in 
vading  enemy  would  be  spread  on  the  wings  of  the 
wind.  In  Virginia,  long  afterward,  farmers'  sons 
and  daughters  would  ride  thirty  miles  in  a  dark 
night  to  give  information  to  Lee  or  Jackson  or 
Stuart  of  some  move  of  the  enemy;  and  no  important 
move  was  ever  made  by  any  Federal  general  with 
out  being  promptly  and  accurately  reported  to  his 
adversary  in  ample  time  to  prepare.  And  McClellan, 
Hooker,  or  Meade,  in  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania, 
were  always  kept  thoroughly  posted  as  to  the  move 
ments  of  their  Southern  enemies  by  the  country 
people  through  whose  farms  and  along  whose  lanes 
and  roads  they  were  marching. 

But  at  Brandywine  not  a  syllable  was  ever  uttered 
to  the  American  commander  from  the  population 
among  whom  operations  were  taking  place  for  the 
capture  of  their  capital  city  and  the  subjugation  of 
their  country.  Cornwallis  marched  seventeen  miles 
through  the  open  country  by  daylight,  to  get  in  the 
rear,  surround,  and  capture  the  American  army,  and 
not  a  soul  in  all  that  thickly  settled  country  raised 
hand  or  voice  to  save  it. 

The  first  positive  and  accurate  knowledge  the 
Americans  had  of  the  British  movement  was  when, 
late  in  the  afternoon,  Cornwallis  appeared  in  their 
rear.  Sullivan  tried  to  change  front  and  check  him, 
but  that  was  impossible  with  his  green  troops,  and 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  167 

they  broke,  pouring  back  over  the  reserve.  Wash 
ington  rode  in  among  them  in  a  tempest  of  fury,  but 
nothing  could  stop  them.  Greene  held  his  command 
well  in  hand  and  moved  back  in  good  order  and  per 
fect  deliberation,  and  saved  the  wreck  the  rout  had 
left.  Washington  fell  back  to  his  old  position  be 
hind  the  Schuylkill,  and  for  two  weeks  was  engaged 
in  manoeuvring  to  defend  the  fords.  At  last  Howe 
and  his  army  crossed. 

Washington  wrote  to  the  President  of  Congress, 
on  September  23d:  "  The  enemy,  by  a  variety  of  per 
plexing  manceuvers  through  a  country  from  which 
I  could  not  derive  the  least  intelligence  (being  to  a 
man  disaffected),  contrived  to  pass  the  Schuylkill 
last  night  at  the  Fatland  (half  a  mile  below  Valley 
Forge),  and  other  fords  in  the  neighborhood  of  it. 
...  At  least  a  thousand  men  are  barefoot,  and  have 
performed  the  marches  in  that  condition." 

At  10  A.  M.  on  September  26th,  Lord  Cornwallis, 
with  two  battalions  of  British  and  Hessian'  grena 
diers,  two  squadrons  of  the  Sixteenth  Dragoons,  and 
the  artillery,  with  the  chief  engineer,  Captain  John 
Montresor,  the  commanding  officer  of  artillery,  the 
quartermaster,  and  the  adjutant  general,  marched  in 
and  took  possession  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia, 
amid  the  acclamations  of  some  thousands  of  the 
inhabitants,  mostly  women  and  children.  The  men 
would  not  appear.  So,  at  last,  the  rebel  capital  was 
taken,  their  Congress  dispersed,  and  their  army  nearly 
routed  and  driven  in  disorder  from  the  field.  Howe 
camped  his  army  at  Germantown,  near  Philadelphia, 
occupying  the  city  with  a  few  picked  troops  and 
fixing  general  headquarters  there. 

The  expulsion  of  Congress,  the  seizure  of  the  capi- 


168  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

tal,  and  the  rout  at  Brandywine,  had  depressed  the 
morale  of  the  country  to  its  lowest  point.  It  seemed 
utterly  impossible  that  the  militia  could  be  braced 
up  to  meet,  much  less  to  attack,  the  invincible  regu 
lars,  who  had  driven  them  whenever  and  wherever 
they  could  get  at  them.  A  victory  over  the  British 
would  be  of  inestimable  value.  A  gallant  trial  of 
strength  would  restore  confidence,  at  least,  to  troops 
and  to  the  country.  The  exposed  position  of  Howe 
invited  enterprise  similar  to  that  at  Trenton,  and  the 
American  commander  promptly  took  advantage  of 
his  opportunity.  He  divided  his  army  into  three  col 
umns  of  attack,  and  at  7  p.  M.,  October  3d,  moved  out 
of  his  camp  to  strike  the  British  just  before  day  next 
morning.  The  camp  was  about  twelve  miles  from 
the  enemy.  The  attacking  force  was  eight  thousand 
Continentals  and  three  thousand  militia. 

The  attack  was  to  be  made  by  the  right  wing 
under  Sullivan,  accompanied  by  the  commander  in 
chief,  moving  down  the  road  on  which  the  village 
was  built,  with  his  division  of  Maryland  troops  sup 
ported  by  the  division  of  Wayne.  His  reserve  was 
under  Lord  Stirling,  of  Nash's  North  Carolina  and 
Maxwell's  Virginia  brigades.  Sullivan  was  to  attack 
the  left  wing,  while  General  Armstrong,  with  the 
Pennsylvania  militia,  was  to  pass  to  the  left  of  the 
enemy  and  attack  in  the  rear.  Greene,  with  the  left 
wing,  was  to  move  to  the  right  of  the  enemy  and 
march  upon  the  Market  House,  about  the  center  of 
the  camp;  while  McDougall,  with  his  division,  was 
to  attack  in  flank,  and  Smallwood's  division  of  Mary 
land  militia,  and  Forman's  New  Jersey  brigade,  mak 
ing  a  circuit  by  the  Old  York  road,  were  to  attack 
in  the  rear. 


BEGINNING  OF  THE  ACTI 


END  OF  THE  ACTION 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  169 

The  plan  was  fatally  defective.  It  proposed  to 
march  green  troops  twelve  miles  in  the  night.  None 
but  veterans  can  make  such  a  movement.  The 
darkness  disorganizes  the  command,  and  destroys  the 
control  of  field  and  company  officers  over  the  troops. 
File-closers  become  powerless.  And  after  such  a 
march  with  such  troops,  four  separate  attacks  in 
front,  both  flanks  and  rear  to  be  made  by  four  sepa 
rate  commands  at  the  same  instant  of  time,  were  im 
possible.  It  was  impracticable,  as  the  result  showed. 
But  Washington,  knowing  the  value  of  vigor  and  en 
terprise  in  war,  that  surprise  and  the  unexpected  are 
wonderful  forces  in  attack,  hoped  to  repeat  the  ex 
ploit  of  Trenton.  And  the  way  in  the  darkness  was 
long  and  weary.  An  unprecedented  fog  obscured 
the  stars  by  night  and  the  sun  by  day.  It  was  after 
daybreak  when  Sullivan  came  in  touch  with  the 
enemy.  He  attacked  at  once,  and  drove  them  down 
the  road  in  rout.  Neither  the  right  nor  left  attacks 
were  up,  and  Sullivan  had  to  do  all  the  fighting. 

Colonel  Musgrave,  of  the  Fortieth  Regiment  of 
the  Line  of  the  British  army,  with  six  of  his  companies, 
threw  himself  into  a  strong  stone  house  belonging 
to  Chew,  right  in  the  line  of  attack,  and  held  on  to  it, 
firing  on  the  Americans  as  they  passed.  Sullivan 
stopped  to  take  it,  lost  half  an  hour,  and  then  pressed 
on  a  mile  farther  and  broke  the  enemy's  left.  Every 
thing  was  now  in  retreat,  and  Washington's  audac 
ity  about  to  be  crowned  with  magnificent  success. 
The  line  in  front  pursuing  and  pressing  the  enemy 
saw  the  attack  on  Chew's  house  in  the  rear,  and  faced 
about  to  go  to  the  assistance  of  their  comrades.  The 
enemy  supposed  it  was  a  retreat  and  immediately 
advanced,  and  the  whole  army  broke  into  rout.  They 


1 70  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

were  within  ten  minutes  of  victory,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  the  stone  house.  Washington  rode  to  the  head 
of  the  fugitives,  rallied  fragments,  and  with  them 
charged  the  advancing  line  and  was  driven  back, 
again  and  again  to  rally,  charge,  and  be  repulsed. 
The  gallant  and  warm-hearted  Sullivan,  knightly 
gentleman  as  he  was,  said  :  "  I  saw  with  great  con 
cern  our  brave  commander  in  chief  exposing  himself 
to  the  hottest  fire  of  the  enemy  in  such  a  manner 
that  regard  for  my  country  obliged  me  to  ride  to 
him  and  beg  him  to  retire.  He,  to  gratify  me  and 
some  others,  withdrew  to  a  short  distance,  but  his 
intense  anxiety  for  the  fate  of  the  day  soon  brought 
him  up  again,  where  he  remained  until  our  troops 
had  retreated." 

,  Washington  and  all  the  principal  officers  were 
deeply  mortified  at  the  result.  They  always  believed 
that  the  victory  was  lost  by  an  accident,  and  that 
the  panic  of  the  troops  was  unaccountable.  It  is 
difficult  now  to  get  at  the  hidden  influences  which 
produced  results  long  past,  but  a  cotemporary,  who 
commanded  troops  at  Germantown,  has  left  a  recorded 
statement  that  "  there  was  too  much  drinking  at 
Germantown  "  ;  and  General  Stephens,  of  the  Virginia 
Division,  was  cashiered  for  drunkenness  at  this  battle. 
To  the  darkness  of  the  night,  the  complicated  detail 
of  movements,  the  obstacle  of  Chew's  house,  and 
Musgrave's  six  companies,  may  have  been  added  the 
incapacity  of  superior  officers  paralyzed  by  drink. 
That  would  account  for  every  misfortune. 

Though  the  daring  enterprise  failed  and  he  lost 
the  hazard,  the  moral  effect  of  the  movement  was 
enormous  at  home  and  abroad.  That  an  army  that 
had  been  retreating  for  a  year,  and  been  beaten 


THE    NEW   JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  171 

within  thirty  days,  could  have  been  brought  to  face 
and  attack  regulars  and  come  within  an  ace  of  rout 
ing  them,  produced  a  profound  impression  on  the 
soldiers  and  statesmen  on  the  Continent. 

Frederick  the  Great  said  that  the  dash  on  Tren 
ton  was  worthy  of  the  greatest  general ;  and  the 
Count  de  Vergennes  told  the  American  Commis 
sioner  at  Paris  that  nothing  struck  him  so  much  as 
General  Washington  attacking  Howe  at  German- 
town  ;  that  to  bring  an  army  raised  within  a  year  to 
such  a  pass,  promised  everything.  It  reminds  us  of 
McClellan's  attack  on  Lee  at  Sharpsburg  or  Antie- 
tam  ;  not  that  McClellan  got  such  magnificent  fight 
ing  out  of  his  troops — for  they  did  fight  superbly — but 
that  he  got  them  to  fight  at  all ;  men  who  for  the 
preceding  year  had  never  fought  their  enemy  but  to 
be  beaten,  and  had  never  faced  him  but  to  retreat. 
The  fighting  at  Germantown,  as  at  Sharpsburg,  was 
a  phenomenon  of  will  and  courage  in  the  commander. 

When  the  army  was  about  dissolving,  and  the 
Congress  itself,  paralyzed  by  inherent  imbecility  and 
secret  treason,  was  fleeing  from  town  to  town,  wher 
ever  it  could  find  temporary  shelter,  it  found  itself 
at  Christmas  time,  1776,  in  brief  security  at  Baltimore. 
It  met  at  a  hall  in  the  building  on  the  corner  of  Lib 
erty  and  Baltimore  Streets,  then  the  building  farthest 
west  on  the  road  which  led  from  the  Western  coun 
try  to  tide  water. 

Then,  while  Washington  was  moving  back  after 
the  surprise  at  Trenton,  and  was  securing  his  pris 
oners  and  his  booty  by  the  retrograde  over  the 
Delaware,  on  the  27th  of  December,  1776,  the  Con 
gress  passed  this  resolution:  "This  Congress,  hav 
ing  maturely  considered  the  present  crisis,  having 


\j2  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

perfect  confidence  in  the  wisdom,  vigor,  and  up 
rightness  of  General  Washington,  do  hereby  resolve, 
that  General  Washington  shall  be,  and  he  is  hereby, 
vested  with  full,  ample,  and  complete  powers  to  raise 
and  collect  together,  in  the  most  speedy  and  effec 
tual  manner,  from  any  or  all  of  these  United  States, 
sixteen  battalions  of  infantry  in  addition  to  those 
already  voted  by  Congress ;  to  appoint  officers  for 
the  said  battalions  of  infantry ;  to  raise,  officer,  and 
equip  three  thousand  light  horse  and  three  regiments 
of  cavalry,  and  a  corps  of  engineers,  and  to  establish 
their  pay ;  to  apply  to  any  of  the  States  for  such  aid 
of  the  militia  as  he  shall  judge  necessary;  to  form 
such  magazines  of  provisions,  and  in  such  places,  as 
he  shall  think  proper  ;  to  displace  and  appoint  all 
officers  under  the  rank  of  brigadier  general,  and  to 
fill  all  vacancies  in  every  department  in  the  Ameri 
can  army ;  to  take,  wherever  he  may  be,  whatsoever 
he  may  want  for  the  use  of  the  army,  if  the  inhabit 
ants  will  not  sell  it,  allowing  a  reasonable  price  for 
the  same;  to  arrest  and  confine  all  persons  who  re 
fuse  to  take  Continental  currency  or  are  otherwise 
disaffected  to  the  American  cause,  and  to  return  to 
the  State  of  which  they  are  citizens  their  names  and 
the  nature  of  their  offenses,  together  with  the  wit 
nesses  to  prove  them.  That  the  foregoing  powers 
be  vested  in  General  Washington  for  and  during  the 
term  of  six  months  from  this  date,  unless  sooner  de 
termined  by  Congress." 

On  December  3oth  the  Congress  sent  a  circular 
letter  to  the  Governor  of  each  State,  explaining  the 
necessity  of  this  extraordinary  action,  and  urging 
that  "  the  fullest  influence  of  your  State  may  be  ex 
erted  to  aid  such  levies  as  the  general  shall  direct 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  173 

in  consequence  of  the  power  now  given  him."  They 
also  appointed  a  committee,  consisting  of  Robert 
Morris,  George  Clymer,  and  George  Walton,  to  con 
vey  to  General  Washington  a  copy  of  their  resolu 
tions  appointing  him  dictator,  who  inclosed  it  to  him 
on  December  31,  1776. 

On  January  i,  1777,  he  wrote  to  the  committee 
from  Trenton,  where  he  then  was,  with  Cornwallis 
moving  on  him  from  Princeton  with  the  flower  of  the 
British  regulars.  He  said  :  "  Yours  of  the  3ist  of  last 
month  inclosed  to  me  sundry  resolves  of  Congress,  by 
which  I  find  they  have  done  me  the  honor  to  intrust 
me  with  powers,  in  my  military  capacity,  of  the  high 
est  nature,  and  almost  unlimited  in  extent.  Instead 
of  thinking  myself  freed  from  all  civil  obligations  by 
this  mark  of  their  confidence,  I  shall  constantly  bear 
in  mind,  that  as  the  sword  was  the  last  resort  for  the 
preservation  of  our  liberties,  so  it  ought  to  be  the 
first  thing  laid  aside  when  those  liberties  are  firmly 
established." 

Whether  this  resolution  was  passed  in  the  enthu 
siasm  of  the  receipt  of  the  news  of  the  victory  at 
Trenton  on  the  preceding  morning,  or  whether  it  was 
passed  in  despair  at  the  desperate  condition  of  the 
Revolution,  it  was  clearly  an  abandonment  by  Con 
gress  of  the  struggle,  and  a  confession  of  its  own  in 
capacity  to  do  anything.  It  meant  that,  "  experience 
having  proved  that  we  have  neither  the  capacity  nor 
the  power  to  direct  or  conduct  the  rebellion,  we 
hereby  invest  you,  general,  with  all  the  power  in 
trusted  to  us  by  our  States,  or  whatever  you  can 
obtain  from  them  or  from  anywhere,  by  hook  or  by 
crook,  to  do  the  best  you  can  under  the  circum 
stances.  If  you  can  conduct  the  war,  conduct  it;  if 


174 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


you  must  make  peace,  make  it ;  if  you  are  obliged  to 
disperse,  take  to  the  woods.  We  are  at  the  end  of 
our  rope;  we  can  do  nothing  further;  we  give  it  up, 
and  turn  the  whole  matter  over  to  you." 

To  be  sure,  they  pretended  to  limit  the  duration 
of  the  dictatorship  to  six  months  or  the  pleasure  of 
the  Congress;  but  the  only  limit  to  the  power  of  a 
dictator  is  the  pleasure  of  the  dictator  himself.  He 
ends  it  when  he  thinks  public  necessity — which  is  an 
other  term  for  his  personal  opinion — requires  that  it 
should  terminate.  The  prestige  of  the  attack  at 
Trenton  and  Princeton  conferred  vastly  more  au 
thority  on  the  commander  in  chief  than  the  transi 
tory  resolves  of  the  ambulatory  Congress. 

The  people  felt,  and  the  States  knew,  that  the 
government  of  the  country  was  at  the  headquarters 
of  the  army,  and  that  its  counsels  and  debates  were 
conducted  under  the  chapeau  of  the  general  in  chief. 
The  power  of  public  opinion  furnished  recruits,  sus 
tained  the  currency,  and  supplied  provisions,  as  far  as 
anything  in  that  direction  was  done.  The  resolution 
of  Congress  effected  nothing,  and,  whether  intended 
or  not  when  it  was  passed,  its  utter  failure  to  accom 
plish  anything  or  to  strengthen  the  arm  of  the  gen 
eral  in  the  field  was  made  the  excuse,  the  reason, 
and  the  justification  for  the  intrigue  of  the  following 
winter,  when  it  was  intended  by  the  Board  of  War 
to  drive  him  out  of  the  army,  and  thus  accomplish  a 
surrender  of  the  struggle. 

Washington's  correspondence  during  this  period 
is  the  most  remarkable  display  of  ability  ever  made 
by  any  soldier  or  any  statesman.  His  task  was, 
first,  to  keep  an  army  together  so  as  to  furnish  a 
nucleus  for  armed  resistance;  second,  and  equally 


THE   NEW  JERSEY   CAMPAIGN.  175 

difficult,  to  hold  the  Congress  and  prevent  its  dispers 
ing  to  the  woods  and  the  mountains  to  escape  the 
wrath  of  the  victorious  officers  of  the  law ;  third,  to 
hold  up  the  States  to  the  spirit  of  resistance,  so  that, 
whatever  happened  to  the  Continental  organization, 
armed  or  civic,  military  or  congressional,  the  seeds 
of  rebellion  should  be  preserved  and  cherished,  and 
the  struggle  against  irresponsible  and  unlimited 
power  should  never  be  abandoned.  He,  more  than 
any  man,  knew  the  limitless  resources  of  the  Western 
country — West  Augusta  he  once  called  it — with  its 
plains  and  its  mountains,  its  forests  and  its  valleys, 
its  great  rivers  and  its  grand  unsalted  seas.  He 
knew  that  "  montani  semper  liberi"  ;  and  with  the  Brit 
ish  occupying  every  port  and  garrisoning  every  capital 
and  patrolling  every  town  on  tide  water,  the  track 
less  forest  and  illimitable  desert  could  never  be  sub 
dued  when  held  by  men  of  the  race  he  represented. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    TIMES    THAT    TRIED    MEN'S    SOULS. 

WHEN  Howe,  on  September  26,  1777,  occupied 
Philadelphia,  the  fortunes  of  America  were  at  their 
lowest  ebb.  Burgoyne  had  opened  the  way  from 
Canada  by  the  capture  of  Ticonderoga,  which  St. 
Clair  had  abandoned  after  his  assurance  to  the  com 
mander  in  chief  that  it  could  and  should  be  held. 
After  the  evacuation  he  had  disappeared  in  the  wil 
derness  with  his  troops,  and  for  days  there  were  no 
tidings  of  him.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  had  forced  the 
Hudson  and  was  pressing  on  to  Albany  with  every 
prospect  of  a  junction  with  Burgoyne.  That  union 
insured  the  conquest  of  New  England. 

Gates,  by  his  own  intrigues  and  the  influence  of 
the  New  England  members  of  Congress,  had  procured 
the  command  of  the  Northern  Department,  displac 
ing  Schuyler,  who,  by  his  family  connection,  his  po 
litical  influence,  his  services,  the  confidence  the 
country  reposed  in  him,  and  his  patriotic  devotion, 
was  entitled  to  and  best  fitted  for  the  command. 
Washington  at  once  dispatched  Gates  to  his  com 
mand,  well  instructed  as  to  the  strategy  of  his  cam 
paign.  If  New  England  was  to  be  saved,  she  must 
be  saved  by  her  own  exertions.  He  proposed  to 
give  him  a  nucleus  of  veteran  Continental  troops 
around  which  the  country  could  rally.  He  sent 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS.    177 

Morgan  and  his  Virginia  riflemen  with  him,  and 
wrote  urgent  letters  to  the  Governors  of  Massachu 
setts  and  Connecticut,  pressing  them  to  hurry  their 
militia  to  the  support  of  Gates  and  the  defense  of  the 
New  England  line,  and  impressing  on  them  the  vital 
importance  of  preventing  the  junction  between  Bur- 
goyne  and  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

The  moral  effect  of  his  exhortations,  aided  by  the 
imminent  peril,  was  prodigious.  New  England  rose 
en  masse,  and  its  militia,  including  many  soldiers  of 
the  last  war,  of  the  capture  of  Louisburg,  and  of 
Indian  fights,  rushed  to  the  camp  at  Albany,  bring 
ing  their  own  arms  and  rations.  No  more  stalwart 
and  determined  re-enforcements  ever  came  up  in  time 
of  need.  Burgoyne,  as  he  wended  his  tedious  and 
devious  way  down  Lake  Champlain,  saw  the  tem 
pest  rising.  He  wrote  to  the  ministry  at  home  that 
the  New  Hampshire  grants,  which  had  been  a  wilder 
ness  at  the  time  of  the  last  war,  were  now  peopled 
by  the  most  hardy,  daring,  and  rebellious  race  in 
America,  "who  hang  like  a  gathering  storm  on  my 
left."  He  reached  the  southern  end  of  Lake  George 
and  crossed  the  Hudson,  keeping  up  a  casual  and 
uncertain  communication  with  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

Around  him  gathered  the  yeomanry  of  New  Eng 
land — front,  flanks,  and  rear — as  they  had  enveloped 
Lord  Percy  on  that  retreat  from  Lexington.  They 
were  everywhere.  They  were  untiring.  By  the  mid 
dle  of  October  Burgoyne  sent  word  to  Sir  Henry 
that  he  would  hold  on  for  five  days;  that  he  could 
not  be  responsible  after  that.  His  position  and  con 
dition  were  better  understood  at  the  American  head 
quarters  than  at  his  own,  and  no  effort  was  left 
untried  to  force  the  fighting  and  to  terminate  the 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

campaign  before  Clinton  could  possibly  get  up. 
Arnold  was  with  Gates,  with  the  rank  of  brigadier 
general,  but  had  come  into  collision  with  his  com 
manding  officer,  who  had  deprived  him  of  his  com 
mand,  and  in  effect  had  ordered  him  to  the  rear  by 
directing  him  to  report  to  headquarters.  To  be  sent 
to  the  rear  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  is  an  un 
pardonable  affront,  an  outrage,  or  an  extreme  duty, 
as  the  case  may  be,  but  it  is  the  decision  of  the  com 
manding  officer  that  that  particular  soldier  is  unfit 
for  duty  in  that  battle. 

Arnold's  fiery,  insubordinate  temper  could  never 
brook  $tich  an  insult,  and  on  his  troops  becoming 
engaged,  he  dashed  off,  without  rank,  command,  or 
orders,  and  led  them.  On  the  field  his  personality 
was  so  great  that  his  directions  were  obeyed  as  or 
ders,  and  the  best  fighting  against  Burgoyne  was 
done  by  Arnold.  At  last  the  British  general  was 
forced  to  capitulate,  and  on  the  iyth  of  October, 
1777,  surrendered  five  thousand  seven  hundred  and 
fifty-two  men  to  Gates,  who  had,  regulars  and  mili 
tia,  ten  thousand  five  hundred  and  fifty-four  men  on 
duty.  Gates  was  so  much  elated  by  his  success  that 
his  head — a  weak,  light  member — was  turned.  He 
had  been  assigned  to  his  command  by  Congress, 
therefore  he  argued  that  he  held  an  independent 
command,  ignoring  the  fact  that  Congress  had  ap 
pointed  a  commander  in  chief  of  all  the  armies  raised 
and  to  be  raised  for  the  defense  of  American  liberty. 
He  reported  the  result  to  the  President  of  Congress, 
and  Washington  was  left  for  weeks  with  no  official 
information  from  Gates  of  the  capitulation  and  of 
its  substantial  results. 

Gates  had  captured  seven  thousand  stand  of  small 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS.    179 

arms,  with  great  quantities  of  artillery,  ammunition, 
clothes,  tents,  and  supplies,  which  would  have  been 
of  immense  importance  to  the  army  before  Philadel 
phia.  Washington  went  straight  on  in  the  execution 
of  his  grand  strategy.  He  occupied  the  interior 
lines,  and,  by  concentrating  against  isolated  attacks 
of  the  enemy,  could,  to  an  extent,  equalize  the  enor 
mous  disparity  of  force.  He  had  fortified  the  Dela 
ware  ;  and,  could  it  be  held,  Sir  William  Howe,  sur 
rounded  in  Philadelphia  by  the  rising  of  Maryland, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey,  could  be  destroyed  as 
Burgoyne  had  been. 

The  surrender  of  the  British  general  at  Saratoga 
had  released  the  Continentals  in  the  army  of  the 
North.  With  them  to  re-enforce  him,  he  could  hold 
the  Delaware,  and  the  militia  of  the  three  States 
could  close  the  gap  behind  Howe  to  the  Chesapeake. 
He  sent  a  peremptory  order  to  Gates  to  dispatch  all 
his  Continentals  to  him.  Gates  did  not  do  it.  He 
sent  another  order,  and  then  dispatched  Colonel 
Alexander  Hamilton,  his  aid-de-camp,  to  see  that  his 
commands  were  promptly  obeyed.  Hamilton  started, 
expecting  to  meet  the  troops  en  route;  but,  riding 
across  the  country,  it  was  not  until  he  reached  Peeks- 
kill,  on  the  Hudson,  that  he  met  Morgan  laboring  on 
the  way  to  Philadelphia. 

Finding  Putnam  on  the  east  side  of  the  Hudson, 
he  dispatched  two  Continental  brigades  from  his 
command  to  headquarters,  and  on  reaching  Gates 
prevailed  on  him  to  send  on  two  other  brigades. 
These  re-enforcements  reached  the  Delaware  ten 
days  too  late — after  Howe  had  captured  the  forts, 
opened  the  Delaware,  and  made  secure  his  communi 
cations  with  the  open  sea  and  his  base  of  supplies 
13 


l8o  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

in  New  York.  The  probability  of  repeating  in  Penn 
sylvania  the  achievement  of  Saratoga  was  gone, 
and  the  only  thing  left  to  do  was  to  protract  the 
war,  wear  out  his  antagonist,  and  wait  for  re-enforce 
ments,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  American  com 
mander  in  chief,  were  sure  to  come.  His  anticipa 
tions  of  the  rising  of  the  country  were  not  met. 
The  militia  of  Maryland  came  in  from  the  mountains 
to  the  sea.  The  counties  on  the  Delaware — now  the 
State  of  Delaware — responded  with  that  chivalry, 
spirit,  and  generosity  for  which  those  people  have 
always  been  distinguished. 

New  Jersey  was  divided  in  sentiment,  torn  by  in 
ternal  broils,  harried  by  continual  raids  by  Hessian, 
Tory,  and  regular,  and  could  not  rise;  she  was  tied. 
But  Pennsylvania,  the  invaded  State,  stood  as  placid 
as  her  own  fat  oxen.  On  the  iyth  of  October  Wash 
ington  wrote  to  Wharton,  the  President  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  appealing  to  him  to  keep  up  the  quota  of 
troops  demanded  of  the  State  by  Congress.  "  I  assure 
you,  sir,"  he  writes,  "  it  is  a  matter  of  astonishment 
on  every  part  of  the  Continent  to  hear  that  Pennsyl 
vania,  the  most  populous  and  opulent  of  all  the 
States,  has  but  twelve  hundred  militia  in  the  field,  at 
a  time  when  the  enemy  are  endeavoring  to  make 
themselves  completely  masters  of,  and  to  fix  their 
quarters  in,  her  capital." 

Yet,  a  month  afterward,  when  the  American  army, 
"starved,  naked,  without  shoes,  clothes,  or  pro 
visions,  three  days  successively  without  bread,  two 
days  without  meat,"  writes  Varnum,  of  Rhode  Island, 
the  Legislature  of  Pennsylvania  addressed  a  remon 
strance  to  Congress  against  Washington's  going  into 
winter  quarters  instead  of  keeping  the  open  field. 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS,    igl 

This  drop  overflowed  the  full  cup  of  his  patience, 
and  he  broke  out  in  a  letter  to  Congress  which  did 
full  justice  to  the  subject,  to  himself,  and  to  them. 
He  told  them  :  "  With  truth  I  can  declare  that  no  man, 
in  my  opinion,  ever  had  his  measures  more  impeded 
than  I  have  by  every  department  of  the  army. 
Since  the  month  of  July  we  have  had  no  assistance 
from  the  quartermaster  general,  and  to  want  of 
assistance  from  this  department  the  commissary 
charges  a  great  part  of  his  deficiency. 

"  To  this  I  may  add,  that  notwithstanding  it  is  a 
standing  order,  and  often  repeated,  that  the  troops 
shall  always  have  two  days'  provisions  by  them, 
that  they  might  be  ready  on  any  sudden  call,  yet 
an  opportunity  has  scarcely  ever  offered  of  taking 
advantage  of  the  enemy  that  it  has  not  been  either 
totally  obstructed  or  greatly  impeded  on  this  ac 
count.  ...  By  a  field  return  this  day  made,  besides 
the  men  in  hospital  and  farmers'  houses  for  want  of 
shoes,  we  have  two  thousand  eight  hundred  and 
ninety-eight  men  now  in  camp,  unfit  for  duty  because 
they  are  barefoot  and  otherwise  naked.  .  .  . 

"  By  the  same  return  it  appears  that  our  whole 
strength  in  Continental  troops,  including  the  Eastern 
brigades,  which  have  joined  us  since  the  surrender 
of  General  Burgoyne,  exclusive  of  the  Maryland 
troops  sent  to  Wilmington,  amounts  to  no  more  than 
eight  thousand  two  hundred  in  camp  fit  for  duty.  .  .  . 
I  can  assure  gentlemen,  that  it  is  a  much  easier  and 
less  distressing  thing  to  draw  remonstrances  in  a 
comfortable  room  by  a  good  fireside  than  to  occupy 
a  cold,  bleak  hill,  and  sleep  under  frost  and  snow 
without  clothes  or  blankets.  However,  although 
they  seem  to  have  little  feeling  for  the  naked  and 


1 82  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

distressed  soldiers,  I  feel  abundantly  for  them,  and 
from  my  soul  I  pity  those  miseries  which  it  is  neither 
in  my  power  to  relieve  nor  prevent." 

To  keep  the  field  was  impossible.  The  com 
manding  general  might  have  kept  the  field,  but 
he  could  not  keep  the  army.  It  would  have  died 
out,  starved  out,  frozen  out,  straggled  out.  In 
thirty  days  he  would  not  have  had  enough  men 
for  camp  guard;  so,  in  the  face  of  the  remon 
strances  of  the  Congress  and  of  the  Pennsylvania 
Legislature,  he  went  into  winter  quarters  at  Valley 
Forge,  twenty  miles  from  Philadelphia,  on  the  west 
side  of  the  Schuylkill,  on  the  i;th  of  December  1777. 
The  Congress  had  become  ambulatory,  and  was 
steadily  deteriorating  in  material.  The  best  men 
were  in  the  army  or  in  the  State  governments.  John 
son  had  been  made  Governor  of  Maryland,  and  was 
organizing  that  new  State  and  utilizing  her  resources 
to  support  Washington,  for  he  thoroughly  under 
stood  that  Washington  was  the  Revolution.  Patrick 
Henry  was  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  had  declined 
to  accept  the  position  of  deputy  to  Congress,  as 
George  Mason  also  had  done  from  the  beginning. 
George  Clinton  was  Governor  of  New  York,  and 
Schuyler  was  with  the  army. 

The  feeble,  incapable  body  known  as  the  Con 
gress  was  no  longer  the  body  that  at  risk  of  life  and 
fortune  had  shown  the  way  to  liberty  by  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  but  was  composed  of  obscure 
men,  without  force  of  character  or  consideration  in 
the  communities  they  represented.  This  was  par 
ticularly  so  among  the  deputies  from  New  England. 
The  Adamses  were  there,  firm,  faithful,  brave,  and 
true  ;  they  never  faltered  or  hesitated  ;  but  the  great 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS.    183 

mass  were  attorneys  or  preachers  or  traders,  without 
high  ideas  of  duty,  with  no  idea  of  devotion  or  self- 
sacrifice.  John  Jay,  long  after  the  Revolution,  said 
to  his  son :  "  No  one  but  John  Adams  and  I  know  the 
history  of  the  Continental  Congress.  It  will  never 
be  written."  Its  corruptions,  its  intrigues,  its  un 
scrupulous  undermining  of  Washington  and  the  com 
mon  cause  will  never  be  revealed.  The  sectional 
line  had  appeared  at  an  early  day. 

The  Adamses  had  endeavored  to  obliterate  it  by 
cordial  support  of  Virginian  influence  in  the  selec 
tion  of  a  Virginia  colonel  for  commander  in  chief. 
He  was  nominated  by  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  but 
Adams  brought  New  England  to  his  formal  support. 
This  left  a  feeling  of  soreness  in  New  England. 
Artemas  Ward>  their  own  commander  in  chief  of 
their  own  army,  which  they  had  raised,  was  super 
seded  by  a  Virginian  aristocrat,  with  his  liveries, 
his  coat  of  arms,  his  coach  and  four,  and  his  out 
riders.  He  was  an  abomination  to  the  nostrils  of 
the  faithful.  John  Hancock,  President  of  the  Con 
gress,  was  affronted  that  he  had  not  been  selected 
to  command  the  army.  So  the  feeling  grew.  Small 
men,  without  pedigree,  manners,  or  fortune,  hate 
those  who  are  their  antipodes  in  character,  conduct, 
and  general  estimation.  The  dignified  deportment  of 
the  Virginian  gentleman  was  exaggerated  into  pon 
derous  pomposity,  and  his  style  of  dress  and  of  liv 
ing  resented  as  an  assumption  of  superiority. 

Whenever  the  troops  were  in  cantonments,  or 
camps,  the  commander  in  chief  expected  all  general 
and  field  officers  to  dine  with  him  every  day  at  three 
o'clock.  The  etiquette  at  dinner  was,  that  every 
officer  should  appear  dressed  as  a  gentleman  should 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


be;  and  the  meal,  whether  of  the  scantiest  or  most 
abundant,  was  served  by  the  general's  own  cooks 
and  trained  servants  he  had  brought  from  Virginia. 
They  were  not  unaccompanied  with  a  glass  of  good 
rum  or  sound  Madeira  from  the  cellar  of  Mount 
Vernon.  This  simple  social  rite  served  a  great  and 
useful  purpose.  It  brought  all  the  officers  under  the 
constant  supervision,  inspection,  and  examination  of 
their  chief,  who  thus  became  acquainted  with  the 
character,  ability,  and  capacity  of  each  man  ;  while 
it  brought  them  all  into  that  close  contact  which  so 
largely  creates  the  comradeship  of  arms,  and  makes 
soldiers  the  more  serviceable,  as  they  have  confi 
dence  in  each  other.  This  form  of  entertainment 
had  been  commenced  by  the  commander  in  chief  as 
soon  as  he  assumed  command  at  Cambridge,  and 
was  continued  by  him  during  the  entire  war.  This 
formal  state  was  offensive  to  the  democratic  mind, 
and  was  the  source  of  criticism,  carping,  and  ill-will 
in  Congress.  How  much  and  how  far  British  gold 
was  used  in  that  body  to  foment  discontent  and  to 
create  dissension  and  purchase  treason,  we  do  not  as 
yet  know.  It  is  certain  that  John  Jay  and  others 
believed  that  such  influences  were  at  work. 

We  now  know  that  Charles  Lee  had  made  his 
terms,  and  was  exchanged  and  sent  back  to  the 
army  to  carry  out  the  scheme  agreed  on  at  the 
British  headquarters  in  New  York.  At  the  same 
time  appeared  in  London  a  number  of  letters  of 
Washington  to  his  brother  Lund  Washington  and  to 
Lieutenant  Battaille  Muse,  his  manager  at  Mount 
Vernon,  depreciating  the  movement  for  independ 
ence,  and  the  motives  of  the  movers  for  it  and  the 
characters  of  the  leaders.  These  letters  contained 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED    MEN'S   SOULS.    185 

many  domestic  allusions  and  family  details,  which 
seemed  to  establish  their  genuineness.  If  true,  they 
showed  that  the  writer  was  a  traitor  to  his  cause,  a 
hypocrite  to  his  friends,  and  a  maligner  of  his  com 
rades.  They  were,  in  fact,  forged  by  Sir  John  Ran 
dolph,  Royal  Attorney-General  of  Virginia,  who  had 
taken  the  Tory  side,  gone  to  London,  and  made  this 
contribution  toward  the  destruction  of  kin  and  coun 
try,  though  he  never  struck  a  blow  in  the  field  in 
defense  of  his  opinions. 

These  letters  were  republished  in  New  York  and 
distributed  through  the  country  by  the  hands  of 
envy  and  the  breath  of  slander.  Everywhere  the  air 
was  full  of  suspicions  of  "our  modern  Fabius,"  as 
the  New  England  members  derisively  dubbed  the 
Virginian  colonel.  Even  brusque,  prompt,  positive 
John  Adams  wrote  his  wife,  that  he  was  thankful 
that  the  capture  of  Burgoyne  had  been  made  by  the 
Northern  army.  "  If  it  had  been  accomplished  by  the 
Southern  army,"  said  the  New  Englander,  "its  com 
mander  would  have  been  deified.  It  is  bad  enough  as 
it  is."  A  deep-laid  plan  then  began  to  be  put  in  exe 
cution,  not  alone  to  displace  Washington — though 
that  would  have  been  fatal  to  the  cause,  for  it  would 
not  have  brought  such  prompt  returns  to  the  opera 
tors.  It  was  intended,  in  Congress,  to  force  Washing 
ton  out;  Lee  to  take  command,  as  next  in  rank,  and 
then  the  latter  was  to  carry  out  his  agreement  with 
Sir  Henry  Clinton  of  restoring  the  Union  and  peace 
to  a  distracted  people.  The  first  step  was  to  paralyze 
the  commander  in  chief.  That  was  done  by  reor 
ganizing  the  Board  of  War,  vested  with  general  di 
rection  of  operations,  on  which  was  placed  Thomas 
Mifflin,  the  discredited  quartermaster  general,  whom 


1 86  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Washington  had  just  reported  to  Congress  for  incom- 
petency,  Joseph  Trumbull,  ex-Commissary-General 
Richard  Peters,  Colonel  Timothy  Pickering,  and 
General  Horatio  Gates.  This  board  organized  by 
making  Gates  president,  and  Wilkinson,  his  chief  of 
staff,  secretary.  It  was  thus  organized  to  convict. 
Its  plan  was  to  snub  Washington,  to  ignore  his  rank, 
to  send  orders  over  his  head,  and  to  make  it  impossi 
ble  for  him  to  command  the  army. 

When  he  resigned,  Gates  assumed  that  he  would 
succeed  to  the  vacant  scepter.  We  can  not  believe 
that  Gates  was  a  party  to  the  Lee  plot,  and  there  is 
no  evidence  now  known  pointing  that  way;  but  it  is 
more  probable  that  Gates  was  the  cat's-paw  of  the 
conspirators.  If  Washington  were  out  of  the  way, 
the  command,  by  operation  of  law,  devolved  upon 
Lee ;  and  it  would  require  an  entire  reorganization 
of  the  army  to  put  Gates  at  the  head  of  it,  and  that 
would  be  impossible. 

Gates  had  been  a  sergeant  in  the  British  army, 
and  the  victory  of  Arnold  and  Morgan  at  Saratoga, 
for  which  he  had  received  the  plaudits  of  the  public, 
had  so  addled  him,  that  he  failed  to  see  the  game 
that  was  being  played  inside  of  the  one  in  which  he 
had  taken  a  part.  He  was  playing  to  make  Gates 
commander  in  chief.  The  real  managers  of  the 
movement  intended  Lee  to  take  charge — play  the 
Monk  act  over  again — and  they  would  all  gain  rank, 
honors,  and  much  wealth.  Of  course  the  first  step 
was  to  blind  Gates  by  flattery;  and  he  was  plied 
with  that  day  after  day.  The  conspiracy  exploded 
in  the  most  accidental  manner,  and  hoisted  its  engi 
neers  as  other  petards  have  done,  before  and  since. 

On  Gates's  staff,  at  Saratoga,  was  a  young  Mary- 


THE    TIMES   THAT    TRIED    MEN'S   SOULS.    187 

lander  as  adjutant  general — James  Wilkinson  by 
name — with  the  proverbial  modesty,  diffidence,  and 
self-depreciation  of  the  ichthyophagi — of  those  nur 
tured  on  oysters  and  fish.  Gates  dispatched  him 
with  his  report  of  Burgoyne's  surrender  to  Congress, 
at  York,  in  Pennsylvania.  It  took  him  eighteen  days 
to  make  the  ride;  he  ought  to  have  done  it  in  five. 
But  then  a  bright,  handsome,  well-dressed  young 
staff  officer,  carrying  the  news  of  victory  through  the 
country,  was  a  great  man  at  every  village  and  at 
every  gentleman's  country  seat  where  he  stopped  to 
bait  and  rest. 

The  girls  of  the  house  hung  over  him,  and  ran 
over  each  other  in  their  eagerness  to  wait  on  this 
new  Othello — how  he  marked  with  the  bread  the 
British  fortifications,  and  with  the  salt  the  rifle-pits 
of  the  Americans;  what  the  general  said  to  him, 
and  what  he  said  to  the  general ;  and  how  by  happy 
coincidence  his  suggestions — though  he  would  not 
presume  to  insinuate  that  the  general  accepted  and 
followed  them,  but  the  fact  was,  nevertheless,  that 
when  the  line  of  action  happened  to  correspond  with 
the  views  he  had  confidentially  imparted  to  the  gen 
eral,  success  invariably  attended  the  operation. 

All  this  over  and  over,  for  days  and  nights,  as 
the  gay  gallant  galloped  from  country  house  to 
country  house.  As  he  approached  the  army  he 
would  from  time  to  time  light  on  some  post  of 
soldiers  or  quarters  of  officers.  Passing  through 
Reading,  he  spent  the  evening  at  the  headquarters 
of  Lord  Stirling,  and  of  course  began  sounding  his 
trumpet.  The  staff  sized  him  up  in  five  minutes, 
filled  his  glass  again  and  again,  and  kept  it  full  and 
also  kept  him  talking.  They  chaffed  him  about  his 


!88  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

great  influence  at  headquarters  with  their  tongues  in 
their  cheeks,  and  intimated  that  in  the  Southern 
army  the  adjutant  general  did  not  know  and  control 
everything.  Knowledge  and  control  were  reserved 
to  the  general  in  chief  alone. 

Wilkinson,  eager  to  impress  these  incredulous 
aids-de-camp,  told  them  that  they  had  no  idea  of 
what  was  going  on  ;  that  the  Board  of  War  was 
about  to  supersede  Washington  with  Gates,  and  that 
then  they  would  have  an  opportunity  to  win  some  of 
the  laurels  of  which  he  had  secured  such  a  plentiful 
crop.  "  In  fact,"  said  the  garrulous  and  bibulous 
chief  of  staff,  "  I  have  read  a  letter  from  General 
Conway,  the  brilliant  and  distinguished  and  experi 
enced  French  officer,  lately  joined,  to  my  own  chief, 
General  Gates,  in  which  he  says :  '  Heaven  has  de 
termined  to  save  your  country,  or  a  weak  general 
and  bad  counsellors  would  have  ruined  it.'  So  you 
see,"  said  Wilkinson,  "that  your  hero  is  only  a  clay 
hero  at  last ;  my  hero  is  the  only  genuine  one,  who 
alone  can  save  the  country." 

Wilkinson  proceeded  to  York,  where  he  delivered 
his  dispatches  with  a  flourish  and  a  bow,  like  a  rus 
tic  beau,  and  waited  until  Congress  should  reward, 
with  some  signal  recognition,  his  distinguished  serv 
ices  in  taking  eighteen  days  to  carry  a  message 
which  any  ordinary  rider  would  have  delivered  in 
five.  He  demanded  a  major  general's  commission,  a 
vote  of  thanks,  a  horse,  and  a  sword — any  one,  either 
or  all — until  Dr.  Witherspoon,  of  Princeton,  said, 
UI  think  ye'd  better  give  the  lad  a  pair  of  spurs." 
They  did  give  him  a  brevet  brigadiership,  and  he 
went  off  swelling  and  happy.  Stirling's  adjutant, 
McWilliams,  of  course  immediately  reported  Wilkin- 


THE   TIMES   THAT    TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS.    189 

son's  statement  to  his  chief,  who  informed  General 
Washington  of  it. 

He  had  been  well  informed  of  the  intrigues  of 
Congress.  He  knew  the  efforts  that  were  being  made 
to  undermine  him  in  public  opinion.  Anonymous 
letters  had  been  sent  to  Patrick  Henry,  Governor  of 
Virginia,  to  Laurens,  President  of  Congress,  and 
to  General  Putnam,  on  the  Hudson,  carefully  depre 
ciating  Washington's  abilities  and  services,  and  urg 
ing  the  necessity  for  an  immediate  change  in  the 
command  of  the  army.  Henry  and  Laurens  sent 
their  letters  to  Washington,  who  identified  them  as 
in  the  handwriting  of  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  of  Phila 
delphia.  That  to  Putnam,  still  preserved  among  his 
papers,  has  since  been  identified  as  in  the  handwrit 
ing  of  James  Lovell,  deputy  in  Congress  from  Massa 
chusetts.  Such  a  swarm  of  buzzing  insects,  hiving 
in  darkness,  only  required  the  light  to  be  let  in  on  it 
to  disperse  it,  and  Washington  did  this  in  the  sim 
plest,  most  direct  way.  On  November  Q,  1777,  he 
wrote  Conway  this  note  : 

"  SIR  :  A  letter  which  I  received  last  night  con 
tained  the  following  paragraph :  '  In  a  letter  from 
General  Conway  to  General  Gates,  he  says :  "  Heav 
en  has  determined  to  save  your  country,  or  a  weak 
general  and  bad  counsellors  would  have  ruined  it." ' 

"  I  am,  sir,  your  obedient  servant, 

"  GEORGE  WASHINGTON." 

Conway  was  overwhelmed.  He  was  inspector  gen 
eral,  with  the  rank  of  major  general.  He  promptly 
resigned,  but  the  Board  of  War  very  properly  would 
not  accept  his  resignation. 


190 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


Mifflin  and  Gates  were  as  confounded  as  Conway, 
but  they  all  agreed  to  stand  together  as  far  as  possi 
ble.  The  first  thing  to  be  done  was  to  find  out  how 
much  Washington  knew.  Hamilton  had  been  some 
time  at  Gates's  headquarters,  and  mean-minded  men 
suspect  mean  tricks,  so  the  idea  floated  through 
what  Gates  took  for  his  mind,  that  Hamilton  had 
stolen  his  correspondence — in  the  name  of  Heaven, 
how  much  and  what  part !  Gates  therefore  wrote  to 
Washington,  complaining  of  this  theft  from  his  let 
ter  book,  and  beseeching  that  the  general  would  aid 
him  in  discovering  the  thief.  Washington  wrote  him, 
explaining  how  the  information  had  come  to  him 
through  the  babbling  of  Wilkinson,  thus  upsetting 
the  theory  of  theft,  but  relieving  the  cabal  with  the 
knowledge  that  no  written  evidence  of  the  state 
ment  was  in  the  possession  of  the  general.  Gates 
therefore  denied  that  there  was  any  such  expression 
in  Conway's  letter  to  him,  and  at  the  same  time  re 
turned  the  letter  to  Conway,  so  that  he  (Gates)  could 
not  be  called  upon  to  produce  it.  Conway  denied 
that  any  such  expression  was  in  the  letter,  and  re 
frained  from  exhibiting  it.  Washington  coldly  per 
sisted  in  holding  them  both  to  the  point,  that  the 
simplest,  plainest,  most  perfect  settlement  of  the  ex 
istence  or  nonexistence  of  the  obnoxious  paragraph 
was  the  production  of  the  paper  itself,  and  without 
it  the  question  would  be  left  absolutely  uncertain. 

Stirling  wrote  Wilkinson  that  he  had  heard  that 
the  latter  now  asserted  that  there  were  no  such 
words  in  the  letter,  and  asked  Wilkinson  also  for  a 
copy  of  the  letter.  Wilkinson  indignantly  refused, 
repudiating  the  idea  of  such  a  betrayal  of  confidence 
as  showing  a  private  letter.  But  Wilkinson's  time 


THE   TIMES   THAT   TRIED   MEN'S   SOULS.    191 

was  not  a  happy  one — Stirling  prodding  him  for  a 
copy,  Gates  denouncing  him  for  treachery,  Conway 
damning  him  for  a  fool.  He  undertook,  as  many  a 
man  has,  to  brazen  through  it.  He  rode  over  to 
York,  sent  his  friend  Colonel  Ball,  of  Virginia,  to 
Gates  with  a  letter  demanding  satisfaction.  The 
terms  of  the  duel  were  arranged,  when  Gates  came 
around  at  night  to  Wilkinson's  quarters,  made  up, 
and  they  became  friends.  He  went  after  Stirling,  but 
Stirling  was  too  ready  with  his  right  hand,  and 
Wilkinson  accepted  in  satisfaction  a  statement  from 
Stirling  that  Wilkinson  had  said  what  he  did  about 
the  letter  in  a  convivial  moment,  but  not  in  confi 
dence.  Wilkinson  resigned  his  commission  as  in 
spector  general  and  major  general,  retaining  that  of 
colonel,  and  retired  to  obscurity.  After  the  war  he 
was  restored  to  the  army,  was  in  command  at  New 
Orleans  on  the  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States,  and  was  charged  with  complicity  with  Colonel 
Aaron  Burr  in  his  treasonable  schemes. 

Conway  resigned,  fought  a  duel  with  General 
John  Cadwalader  about  this  business,  who  shot  him 
through  the  body,  thought  he  was  going  to  die,  and 
wrote  a  contrite  letter  to  General  Washington,  ex 
pressing  the  highest  respect  and  admiration,  and  the 
deepest  love  for  him.  Gates  was  sent  after  a  time 
to  command  the  Southern  army,  and  there  his 
"  Northern  laurels  turned  to  Southern  willows,"  as 
Charles  Lee  warned  him  they  might.  After  defeat 
and  disaster  he  was  relieved,  and  retired  to  an  ob 
scure  plantation  in  Virginia,  where  he  died  unnoticed 
and  unknown.  Every  conspicuous,  exposed  member 
of  the  cabal  came  to  an  ignominious  end.  Not  one 
survived  Washington's  letter  to  Conway.  The 


I92 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


parties  to  it  in  and  out  of  Congress  have  escaped, 
sheltered  by  their  obscurity,  but  not  a  single  mem 
ber  of  that  Congress  ever  won  public  confidence  or 
achieved  reputation,  unless  he  had  been  at  that  time 
an  avowed  supporter  of  Washington.  The  exposure 
of  this  intrigue  paralyzed  the  conspirators.  The 
dictator  ruled  the  Board  of  War,  instead  of  the  Board 
of  War  managing  him.  He  made  Nathanael  Greene, 
of  Rhode  Island,  quartermaster  general,  and  Jeremiah 
Wadsworth,  of  Connecticut,  commissary  general ; 
and  very  soon  military  matters  began  to  improve. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE    FRENCH    ALLIANCE. 

FROM  the  day  of  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  Washington  perfectly  appreciated  the  situation, 
that  independence  could  not  be  achieved  by  the 
colonies  alone.  With  the  command  of  the  water, 
the  British  would  occupy  all  the  ports  and  control 
all  foreign  commerce  and  intercourse  with  the  world. 
The  colonists  could  retire  to  the  mountains,  and 
could  not  be  subjugated,  but  they  never  could  be 
an  independent  people  as  long  as  they  were  cut  off 
from  the  world  and  blockaded  from  the  ocean. 
When  he  presided  at  the  Fairfax  meeting,  and  voted 
to  memorialize  the  King — that  from  the  King  in 
council  there  was  but  one  appeal — he  understood 
that  to  mean  an  appeal  to  the  God  of  battles,  and 
that  appeal  the  Virginians  were  ready  and  willing  to 
make,  unaided  by  any  other  arm  and  unsupported 
from  any  quarter.  They  had  done  so  under  the  lead 
of  Nathaniel  Bacon  against  Sir  William  Berkley— 
unsuccessfully,  indeed,  so  far  as  the  overthrow  of  his 
government  was  concerned,  but  with  entire  success 
so  far  as  demanded  reforms  were  obtained.  Resist 
ance  to  the  King  might  be  made  unaided  ;  independ 
ence  of  the  kingdom  could  only  be  fully  attained  by 
foreign  assistance. 

Washington  was  brought  to  favor  independence 


I Q4  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

as  a  war  necessity  to  carry  on  successful  war;  he 
was  forced  to  favor  the  French  alliance  as  the  only 
means  of  securing  independence.  But  independence 
and  the  French  alliance  were  both  entirely  distaste 
ful  steps  to  many  earnest  and  determined  patriots. 
To  resist  the  Government  with  arms  was  an  inherited 
right ;  to  dissolve  the  Union  was  an  offense  against 
the  law  of  Nature;  to  fight  our  kin,  our  own  blood 
and  our  brothers,  was  the  natural  order ;  but  to  join 
the  "  bloody  Frenchman  "  in  fighting  them  was  en 
tirely  inconceivable.  The  great  struggle  their  an 
cestors  had  made  was  to  expel  New  France  from, 
and  establish  New  England  on,  the  American  conti 
nent  ;  and  it  was  contrary  to  the  traditions,  the  senti 
ments,  and  the  convictions  of  the  English  in  Amer 
ica  to  aid  in  re-establishing  the  French  in  the  position 
from  which  they  had  dislodged  and  expelled  them 
twenty  years  before. 

These  objections  weighed  heavily  on  the  mind 
and  heart  of  Washington.  He  had  spent  a  score  of 
the  years  of  his  life  in  fighting  the  French;  he  was 
not  willing  to  purchase  independence  from  his  blood 
and  kin  at  home  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  their 
hereditary  and  natural  enemy  to  the  position  in  Amer 
ica  from  which  they  had  been  expelled.  But  Wash 
ington's  mind  worked  with  mathematical  and  inexo 
rable  logic.  If  we  were  subjugated,  we  would  lose 
every  right  that  freemen  cherish  and  every  muni 
ment  of  liberty  on  which  they  rely,  and  with  which 
alone  it  can  be  perpetuated.  We  would  become 
serfs  of  an  insolent,  brutal,  overbearing  set  of  mas 
ters,  who,  arrogating  to  themselves  Norman  blood, 
would  introduce  Norman  customs  of  confiscation, 
conviction,  and  forfeitures  into  America.  We  could 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE. 


195 


achieve  independence  and  escape  subjugation  solely 
by  means  of  a  French  alliance.  The  alliance  might 
restore  Canada  to  France,  but  it  were  better  to 
achieve  independence  first,  and  then  control  as  best 
we  could  the  consequences  of  the  alliance. 

Therefore,  when  the  news  came  that  the  treaty, 
offensive  and  defensive,  had  been  signed  on  the  6th 
of  February,  1778,  at  Paris,  between  His  Most  Chris 
tian  Majesty  and  the  United  States  of  America,  it 
was  considered  the  beginning  of  the  end.  It  was 
certain  that  Spain  must  soon  join  France  in  this 
attack  on  their  hereditary  enemy.  Great  Britain 
promptly  declared  war  on  France,  on  March  13,  1778. 
Lord  George  Germaine  shifted  the  responsibility 
for  the  disasters  of  the  American  campaign  from  his 
own  shoulders  to  that  of  the  generals  in  the  field. 
Burgoyne,  who  had  gone  home  on  parole  at  once, 
took  his  seat  in  the  House  of  Commons  and  de 
fended  himself  with  vigor. 

As  soon  as  Sir  William  Howe  heard  of  it  he  in 
sisted  upon  his  right  to  face  his  accusers  and  meet 
the  charges  against  his  conduct  in  person.  He  re 
signed,  turned  over  the  command  to  Sir  Henry  Clin 
ton,  and  sailed  for  home.  The  war  with  France  had 
put  a  new  complexion  on  the  occupation  of  Philadel 
phia.  Instead  of  perfectly  secure  communications 
by  sea,  with  his  base  at  New  York  and  England,  the 
approach  of  a  great  French  fleet  rendered  them 
exceedingly  hazardous.  Consequently,  on  June  18, 
1778,  the  British  army  marched  out  of  Philadelphia, 
with  a  trail  of  wagons  and  Tory  refugees  twelve 
miles  long.  Before  sundown  the  American  advance 
took  possession  of  the  city. 

The  American  army  was  now  about  numerically 
14 


IQ6  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

equal  to  the  British.  It  was  better  than  it  ever  had 
been  in  drill,  equipment,  and  morale.  During  the 
winter  it  had  been  under  the  instruction  of  Von 
Steuben,  inspector  general,  and  the  troops  were 
anxious  to  put  in  practice  some  of  the  movements 
of  the  great  Frederick — which  their  drill  master,  the 
Baron,  had  told  them  a  thousand  times  were  the 
means  by  which  he  achieved  victory.  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  was  pushing  for  deep  water  and  an  open 
port.  He  apprehended  being  cooped  up  in  Phila 
delphia,  the  Delaware  blockaded,  and  the  militia  of 
Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  and  New  Jersey  rising  like 
a  storm  in  his  rear,  both  flanks  and  front,  as  the 
Green  Mountain  Boys  and  the  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut  militia  had  swept  around  Burgoyne. 

Washington  intended  and  hoped  to  accomplish 
this,  but  the  treason  of  Lee  and  the  vanity  of  Gates 
lost  the  chance.  As  soon,  however,  as  Sir  Henry  set 
his  face  toward  the  sea  the  American  commander's 
drums  beat  the  assembly,  and  he  pushed  out  to  cut 
him  off.  The  news  of  the  evacuation  reached  the 
American  headquarters  at  ten  A.  M.  By  two  P.  M.  six 
brigades  were  on  the  march  pushing  out  into  Jersey, 
followed  by  the  whole  army  next  morning  at  day 
light.  This  prompt  action  was  extraordinary.  The 
troops  had  been  in  huts  for  exactly  six  months.  In 
that  time  an  army  accumulates  an  incredible  amount 
of  trash — clocks,  feather  beds,  large  iron  ovens, 
bedsteads,  boxes,  trunks,  etc.  It  is  impossible  to 
shake  them  off  in  a  few  hours.  Soldiers  will  load 
themselves  with  every  conceivable  inconvenience 
rather  than  throw  it  away.  When  the  army  of 
northern  Virginia  evacuated  Manassas,  in  March, 
1862,  its  wagons  were  broken  down  with  Saratoga 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE. 

trunks — unwieldy,  cumbrous  affairs,  the  contribu 
tion  of  devoted  sisters  and  mothers — and  it  took 
three  days'  stalling  of  wagons  and  breaking  down  of 
four  and  six  mule  teams  to  clear  out  the  "  things  " 
piled  in  and  on  them. 

When  the  Germans,  in  1871,  invested  Paris,  the 
Teutonic  mind  seemed  to  run  by  a  law  of  Nature  to 
horology,  and  the  files  of  the  marching  columns 
were  picturesque  and  ridiculous  with  every  variety 
of  clock — big  clocks,  little  clocks,  square  clocks, 
round  clocks,  long  clocks,  short  clocks — on  their 
backs,  in  their  arms,  stuffed  in  their  haversacks,  and 
protruding  from  their  knapsacks;  and  after  a  day 
or  two  the  route  was  strewn  with  every  variety  of 
product  of  French  skill  and  of  German  vexation. 
Caesar  called  this  "  impedimenta." 

That  Washington  should  have  got  in  motion  in 
four  hours  after  receiving  notice  proves,  first,  that 
he  had  been  preparing  for  the  move;  second,  that 
his  troops,  officers  and  men,  were  well  in  hand; 
and  third,  that  the  general  in  chief  had  a  prompt, 
quick,  positive  mind.  He  knew  that  Sir  Henry  must 
evacuate ;  that  he  must  move  by  land  to  New  York ; 
that  his  column  must  be  long  and  attenuated,  choked 
with  the  debris  of  winter  quarters,  and  stretched  out 
with  the  plunder  of  officers  and  the  impedimenta  of 
refugees.  With  such  an  army  guarding  such  a  train, 
there  must  occur  opportunity  to  strike  some  point 
weaker  than  the  other,  and  to  cut  it  off.  If  the  am 
putated  portion  should  be  the  artillery  and  the  re 
serve  ammunition,  so  much  the  better ;  but  the  op 
portunity  must  occur ;  it  was  a  certainty  that  it 
would  occur.  It  was  his  duty  to  be  prepared  to  take 
advantage  of  it;  for  the  great  difference  between  sol- 


198 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


diers  is,  that  one  knows  an  opportunity  when  he  sees 
it,  and  embraces  it  on  sight,  while  the  other  never 
understands  that  an  opportunity  has  been  within  his 
reach  until  after  it  has  passed  irreclaimably  beyond. 

The  American  appreciated  the  conditions,  and 
knew  what  would  happen.  He  had  his  troops 
stripped  ready  for  the  race,  and  the  moment -Sir 
Henry  started  he  gave  the  word,  and  six  brigades 
moved  out  promptly  and  took  the  route,  Charles  Lee 
in  command.  He  crossed  the  Delaware  at  Coryell's 
Ferry,  now  Lambertville,  N.  J.,  on  the  2oth,  the 
army  following  over  the  same  crossing,  and  pressed 
on  toward  Princeton.  Washington  had  the  interior 
and  shorter  line  to  New  York.  By  the  2yth  of  June 
his  advance  interposed  between  the  British  and 
Amboy,  and  Sir  Henry  turned  off  to  the  right  and 
marched  for  Sandy  Hook. 

The  most  incomprehensible  line  of  Washington's 
policy  during  the  whole  war  was  his  constant  appeal 
to  councils  of  war.  He  had  councils  to  determine 
whether  he  should  attack  General  Gage  at  Boston  or 
Sir  William  Howe  at  New  York  or  in  Philadelphia,  or 
whether  he  should  make  the  dash  on  Princeton  ;  and, 
what  is  still  more  impossible  to  understand,  he  al 
ways  permitted  his  council  to  decide. 

It  may  have  been  that,  appreciating  his  own  in 
experience,  he  really  desired  advice;  or  it  may  have 
been  that,  having  made  up  his  mind,  he  took  this 
means  of  impressing  his  views  on  his  subordinates; 
or  he  may  have  taken  this  means  to  bring  his  officers 
in  close  and  confidential  relations  to  each  other,  just 
as  he  always  expected  all  his  general  officers  to  dine 
with  him  every  day.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
reason  for  the  councils  of  war,  they  are  not  discern- 


THE     FRENCH   ALLIANCE. 


I99 


ible  now.  But  this  council  decided  to  attack.  The 
commander  in  chief  had  intended  and  had  been  pre 
paring  for  this  move  for  the  preceding  four  weeks. 
Lee,  therefore,  was  directed  to  push  on  with  his  five 
thousand  men  and  cut  off  the  British  rear  guard  at 
Monmouth  Court-House,  and  hold  it  while  Washing 
ton  brought  up  the  main  body  of  the  army. 

The  movement  was  too  assured  of  success  to  suit 
Lee's  plans.  It  would  certainly  be  accomplished 
if  pressed,  and,  if  accomplished,  disastrous  conse 
quences  to  Sir  Henry  Clinton  might  ensue.  He  might 
be  surrounded  and  captured,  as  Burgoyne  had  been, 
and  then  "good-by"  to  Lee's  dukedom  and  pension. 
He  therefore  asked  to  be  relieved  from  the  command 
of  the  advance,  on  the  ground  of  his  disapproval  of 
the  military  movement.  Lafayette  was  thus  left  in 
charge,  and  his  fidelity,  energy,  and  courage  insured 
a  vigorous  execution  of  the  plan  of  the  commander 
in  chief.  During  the  night  Lee  concluded  that  there 
was  too  much  chance  of  success  with  Lafayette,  and 
that  he  alone  could  insure  disaster. 

With  a  rout  of  the  army  and  a  probable  capture 
of  its  commander,  the  Board  of  War  would  be  re 
vived,  the  command  would  devolve  on  him,  and,  in 
conjunction  with  the  mercenary  traitors  in  Congress, 
the  debris  of  resistance  could  be  surrendered,  the 
terms  of  the  British  commissioners  accepted,  the 
Union  restored,  and  he  secure  his  dukedom,  with 
vast  possessions  from  the  confiscated  estates  of  the 
rebels.  Of  his  own  personal  knowledge  he  knew 
what  a  princely  estate  Mount  Vernon  was,  for  he 
had  been  entertained  there;  and  it  would  furnish  a 
delightful  haven  for  an  old  soldier  battered  by  many 
wars  and  buffeted  by  various  fortunes. 


200  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Lafayette  was  pressing  on  to  make  the  move 
ment  which  would  bring  on  a  general  engagement. 
Lee  thereupon  represented  to  the  general  that  a 
movement  of  such  moment  and  responsibility  ought 
to  be  intrusted  to  the  second  in  command,  and  that 
it  was  his  duty  to  execute  it.  Washington  agreed 
with  him ;  said  that  that  had  been  his  intention,  and 
that  Lee  himself  had  frustrated  it  by  declining  the 
command,  and  that  now  no  change  .could  be  made 
which  would  appear  to  reflect  on  Lafayette  by  send 
ing  a  senior  officer  to  rank  him  and  take  his  com 
mand  away  from  him  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy. 
But  Washington,  with  a  consideration  for  Lee's  feel 
ings  which  does  no  credit  to  his  judgment  of  men,  at 
length  sent  Lee  forward  with  Scott's  and  Varnum's 
brigades  to  re-enforce  Lafayette.  Upon  reporting  his 
arrival  to  the  latter,  his  rank  gave  him  command  of 
the  whole,  and  the  opportunity  to  produce  disaster, 
which  he  sought.  He  was  within  five  miles  of  the 
British  left  wing,  which  was  separated  from  its  right, 
convoying  the  trains,  by  an  interval  of  several  miles. 

The  next  day  (June  28th)  was  one  of  the  hottest 
of  the  season.  Lee  did  not  get  into  action  until 
after  eight  o'clock — he  ought  to  have  struck  his 
blow  at  daylight — and  as  soon  as  he  appeared, 
Cornwallis,  who  commanded  the  British  left,  turned 
sharply  on  him  and  pressed  him  with  vigor.  Wash 
ington,  with  his  main  body,  was  three  miles  back, 
comfortably  enjoying  the  sound  of  the  firing  which 
assured  him  of  substantial  results.  All  at  once  a 
countryman  rode  up  with  an  exclamation  that  the 
Americans  were  retreating.  The  general,  with  em 
phasis,  said  that  the  man  was  a  fool ;  but  before  half 
a  dozen  phrases  could  have  been  uttered  the  road, 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE.  2OI 

the  woods,  the  fields,  the  air  became  full  of  indica 
tions  of  rout  and  panic.  A  drummer  boy  ran  up 
with  his  tongue  hanging  out,  who  was  promptly  cuffed 
into  decency  and  quiet.  Soldiers  could  be  seen 
dodging  about  in  the  woods,  flanking  the  group  in 
the  road,  which  they  understood  at  once  consisted 
of  generals,  who  were  not  good  company  at  that  time 
for  a  skulking  private. 

The  general  up  to  that  time  had  been  standing  in 
the  road  with  his  arm  on  his  horse's  neck,  taking 
in  everything  that  transpired,  cool  and  quiet,  only 
opening  his  mouth  to  damn  the  countryman  and  to 
scold  the  drummer  boy,  when  at  once  he  mounted 
and  struck  off  in  a  gallop  to  the  front,  with  the  staff 
straggling  on  as  best  they  could  behind  him.  Some 
distance  toward  the  fighting  he  met  Grayson's  and 
Patton's  regiments  running  as  fast  as  fatigue,  the 
hot  weather,  and  the  crowd  would  let  them.  The 
Virginians  on  the  run !  No  living  man  had  ever 
seen  that  sight  before,  and  the  general  demanded  of 
them  whether  the  whole  advance  corps  was  retreat 
ing.  They  said  it  was.  Soon  Shreeve,  at  the  head 
of  his  regiment,  came  along  in  good  order.  "  What's 
the  reason  of  all  this  ? "  "I  do  not  know,"  said 
Colonel  Shreeve  ;  "  I  retreated  by  order."  He  di 
rected  Shreeve  to  halt,  form  a  line,  and  rally  what 
he  could  on  it.  Meeting  Colonel  Nathaniel  Ramsay, 
of  the  Maryland  Line,  struggling  and  straggling 
back,  he  said,  "  Colonel  Ramsay,  if  you  can  stop 
this  advance  for  fifteen  minutes  you  will  save  this 
army."  "  I  will  do  it,"  said  Ramsay,  "  or  die  ;  "  and 
he  did  it,  and  did  not  die  either.  Every  officer  who 
came  by  was  dissatisfied  with  the  retreat.  No  one 
could  explain  it.  They  were  driving  the  enemy 


202  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

when  they  were  called  off.  That  was  the  universal 
feeling.  General  Lafayette  sent  word  that  the  pres 
ence  of  the  commander  in  chief  was  imperatively 
needed  on  the  field. 

This  message  overflowed  the  cup  of  patience  and 
broke  the  back  of  self-control.  Just  then  Lee  came 
along  with  his  staff,  cool  and  complacent.  Washing 
ton  rode  at  him  as  if  he  meant  to  ride  him  down. 
He  was  like  a  raging  lion.  "  What  is  the  meaning 
of  all  this  ?  "  he  fiercely  demanded  of  Lee.  His  man 
ner  was  more  nerve-shattering  than  his  words,  his 
voice  than  his  actions,  and  Lee  was  utterly  abashed. 
He  stammered  that  misconception  of  orders  made 
confusion,  and  confusion  necessitated  withdrawal, 
"for  our  troops  can't  face  the  British  infantry;  they 
are  the  best  troops  in  the  world."  "Will  you  com 
mand  here,  sir,  and  hold  this  hill  while  I  bring  up 
the  rest?"  "It  is  perfectly  indifferent  to  me  where 
and  what  I  command,"  said  Lee.  "  I  expect  you 
to  take  proper  means  for  checking  the  enemy !  " 
"  Your  orders  shall  be  obeyed,  and  I  shall  not  be  the 
first  to  leave  the  ground." 

Washington  galloped  back  and  formed  his  line, 
with  Lord  Stirling  on  his  left  and  Greene  on  his 
right.  Cornwallis  first  attempted  to  turn  the  left 
flank,  but  was  driven  back  by  Stirling,  and  then 
tried  the  right  with  equal  bad  fortune,  for  he  was 
checked  by  Greene.  The  British  then  fell  back 
beyond  Monmouth  Court-House,  and  took  a  strong 
position  with  flanks  well  covered  by  woods  and  mo 
rass.  The  American  general  pressed  his  troops  on 
to  attack,  but  before  the  proper  disposition  could  be 
made  night  fell,  and  the  movement  was  abandoned 
on  account  of  the  darkness.  During  the  night 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE.  203 

Washington  and  Lafayette  occupied  the  same  cloak 
on  the  ground,  and  passed  the  entire  time  discussing 
Lee.  What  passed  has  not  been  recorded,  but  La 
fayette  had  seen  the  thing  with  his  own  eyes.  It 
certainly  was  not  cowardice,  for  Lee  was  beyond 
peradventure  a  brave  man.  But  he  had  refused  to 
fight,  had  declined  to  inflict  a  mortal  blow  on  his 
enemy,  and  had  thrown  away  victory  when  it  was 
within  his  grasp.  His  mysterious  capture  outside 
of  his  lines,  the  talk  about  trying  him  by  British 
court-martial  as  a  deserter,  his  effort  to  have  a  com 
mittee  of  Congress  visit  him  in  his  quarters  while 
a  prisoner  of  war,  that  he  might  make  an  important 
communication  to  them — all  this,  it  may  well  be  sup 
posed,  was  brought  up  for  review  and  criticism. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  either  Washington  or 
Lafayette  had  the  faintest  idea  of  the  length  and 
breadth  and  height  and  depth  of  Lee's  turpitude. 
They  could  not  conceive  that  he  was  at  that  very 
moment  in  the  pay  of  the  British  commander  in 
chief,  and  that  the  British  commander  was  acting  on 
Lee's  well-matured  plan  to  destroy  his  commander, 
his  comrades,  his  country,  his  friends. 

The  army  was  halted  the  next  day,  and  soon  after 
was  moved  to  a  salubrious  camping  ground  at  New 
Brunswick  for  rest  and  refreshment.  Sir  Henry,  on 
the  3oth  of  June,  crossed  over  to  Sandy  Hook,  and 
thus  again  New  Jersey  was  clear,  and  the  enemy,  after 
three  years'  campaign,  only  held  what  his  picket 
lines  covered.  Lee  wrote  to  his  chief,  demanding 
an  apology  for  his  language  and  manner  in  the 
battle.  He  was  at  once  ordered  under  arrest,  and 
charges  preferred,  first,  for  disobedience  of  orders  ; 
second,  misbehavior  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy — 


204 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


i.  e.,  cowardice;  third,  disrespect  to  his  commanding 
officer.  A  court-martial,  with  Lord  Stirling  as  presi 
dent,  four  brigadiers  and  eight  colonels,  was  con 
vened  on  July  4th,  at  New  Brunswick.  The  trial 
lasted  until  August  i2th,  and  resulted  in  the  convic 
tion  of  Lee  on  all  three  charges.  He  was  sentenced 
to  be  suspended  from  all  command  for  one  year,  sub 
ject  to  the  approval  of  Congress.  On  December  5th 
the  sentence  was  approved  by  that  body — fifteen  ayes 
and  seven  nays.  If  he  was  guilty  as  charged,  he 
ought  to  have  been  shot,  and  his  escape  can  only  be 
attributed  to  the  provincialism  of  the  court  that 
tried  and  sentenced  him. 

The  respect  for  the  British  character,  the  British 
morals,  statesmen,  and  soldier,  was  still  the  dominat 
ing  and  directing  influence  in  the  colonial  breast; 
and  the  militia  generals  and  colonels  who  sat  on 
Lee's  trial  would  not  have  dreamed  of  shooting  a 
real  lieutenant  colonel  of  the  British  army — a  genu 
ine  soldier,  who  had  seen  war  against  the  Infidel  and 
been  decorated  with  crosses  by  live  kings  and  em 
perors.  It  required  another  generation  and  another 
war  to  eliminate  that  sentiment  as  one  of  the  forces, 
and  a  strong  force,  of  American  society.  But  it  has 
been  eliminated,  and  the  dregs  of  it,  still  exhibited 
on  occasion,  only  prove  the  fad  of  weak-minded 
women  and  no-minded  men. 

Lee  retired  to  a  small  plantation  in  Jefferson 
County,  Va.,  not  far  from  Charlestown,  long  after 
ward  the  scene  of  John  Brown's  execution.  To 
ward  the  end  of  his  term  of  exclusion,  hearing  the 
Congress  was  going  to  drop  him  from  the  army, 
he  wrote  a  very  impertinent  letter  to  the  President 
of  the  Congress,  which,  without  more  ado,  struck  his 


THE    FRENCH    ALLIANCE. 


205 


name  from  the  list  of  American  soldiers.  He  fought 
with  Colonel  John  Laurens,  aid-de-camp  of  Wash 
ington,  on  account  of  some  reflections  on  Laurens's 
chief,  and  passed  the  rest  of  his  life  snarling  and 
cynical,  discreditable  and  discredited ;  and  only  the 
discovery  of  the  Howe  papers  in  this  generation  has 
resurrected  the  skeleton  of  the  almost  last  survivor 
of  the  free  lance  and  the  soldier  of  fortune. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    FRENCH    ALLIANCE    AGAIN. 

WHEN  Washington  took  command  of  the  New 
England  army,  in  July,  1775,  no  man  living  under 
stood  the  conditions,  political  and  military,  as  well, 
and  no  man  enlarged  his  view  as  environment  devel 
oped  and  changed  the  relations  of  people,  of  com 
munities,  and  of  States;  and  he  rose  higher  and  high 
er  to  understand  what  surrounded  him  and  what  was 
necessary.  The  Fairfax  resolutions  accurately  rep 
resented  his  views:  First,  protest  against  illegal  acts 
of  government,  because  government  had  no  right  to 
levy  taxes  or  take  any  portion  of  the  property  of 
any  Englishman  without  his  consent ;  this  had  been 
done  by  John  Hampden.  Protest  proving  unavailing, 
then  to  resist  with  arms  every  trespass  on  common 
right — the  right  of  Englishmen  to  have,  hold,  and 
enjoy  the  products  of  their  own  labor,  free  from 
interference  by  any  one,  from  King  to  constable,  ex 
cept  under  laws  to  which  he  had  consented. 

Such  armed  resistance,  which  the  common  law 
called  the  right  of  self-defense,  was  the  reform  ele 
ment  of  the  British  Constitution,  and  since  the  Nor 
man  Conquest  had  been  the  power  by  which  the 
English  had  kept  their  rulers  in  check  and  preserved 
rights  of  person  and  of  property  to  home  and  family. 
Self-defense  against  trespass  on  rights — the  right  to 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  207 

use  precisely  that  amount  of  force  which  was  neces 
sary  to  protect  and  preserve  person  and  home — was 
the  logical  premise  of  armed  resistance  against  void 
laws  attempted  to  be  enforced  by  officers  of  gov 
ernment,  whether  civil  or  military.  The  colonists 
comprised  about  three  million  white  people,  mainly 
English,  scattered  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  for 
two  thousand  miles,  which  was  indented  at  every 
point  with  sounds,  bays,  and  rivers,  affording  easy 
access  to  the  interior.  Great  Britain  had  three  hun 
dred  thousand  troops  in  the  field,  seasoned  by  cam 
paigns  in  every  climate  in  every  part  of  the  world, 
and  braced  by  victory  over  every  foe  they  ever -met. 
For  a  thousand  years  the  Cross  of  St.  Georgp  had 
been  the  signal  for  victory  and  the  emblem  of  ilory, 
and  for  nearly  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  it  had  s^ept 
the  oceans  from  continent  to  continent,  thecontrollf 
of  commerce  and  the  mistress  of  the  sea. 

The  strategy  of  the  Revolution  was  the  largest, 
wisest,  best,  that  could  have  been  adopted.  It  was 
evolved  from  the  broad  brain  and  great  heart  of 
Washington,  and  was  the  result  of  his  capacity  and 
experience.  He  understood  continental  conditions. 
He  knew  the  value  of  the  Western  lands,  and  how 
the  outlet  to  the  highway  of  commerce,  of  civiliza 
tions,  of  nations  and  races,  was  necessary  to  the  fu 
ture  dwellers  on  the  great  rivers  and  lakes  of  the 
inland  continental  basin ;  but  he  also  understood 
that  the  continent  itself  was  necessary  to  support  the 
progress  of  the  seaboard.  The  thirteen  separate,  dis 
tinct  corporations — colonies — were  as  entirely  apart 
as  if  they  were  on  different  continents.  Charleston 
was  as  far  from  Boston  as  from  London,  and  the 
people  of  New  England  differed  as  widely  from  those 


208  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

on  the  Chesapeake  as  those  on  opposite  sides  of  the 
British  Channel.  In  race,  in  religion,  in  ideas  of  life, 
and  ideals  of  right  and  duty,  they  differed  widely — in 
many  respects  were  antagonistic. 

The  Marylanders  despised  the  Connecticut  "Yan 
kees"  as  bumpkins  without  manners;  the  Yankees 
derided  the  Marylanders  as  "  Macaronis "  without 
manliness.  Virginia  and  Pennsylvania  were  on  the 
point  of  war  about  the  possession  of  the  upper  Ohio. 
New  York  and  New  Hampshire  had  a  similar  bitter 
quarrel  about  the  Green  Mountains.  So,  when  Wash 
ington  assumed  command  of  the  Continental  army, 
it  was  in  substance  a  New  England  army,  and  the 
continental  feeling  was  not  yet  born  to  brace  it. 
During  the  whole  time  of  the  investment  of  Boston 
his  great  effort  was  to  bring  his  people  together  so 
as  to  know  each  other,  for  he  knew  that  association 
would  produce  sympathy  and  respect,  and,  when  the 
Virginia  troops  under  Morgan  and  the  Maryland 
Riflemen  under  Cresap  reported,  he  was  enabled  to 
carry  out  his  policy  of  mixing  them.  While  seeking 
to  crystallize  his  command  by  association,  and  thus 
consolidate  the  colonies  by  the  friendly  relations  of 
their  representatives,  his  mind  was  occupied  with  the 
grand  conceptions  which  embraced  the  continent  and 
eventually  directed  the  war. 

He  sent  Montgomery  and  Arnold  to  Canada  to 
secure  the  support  of  that  people,  which  would  have 
been  done  but  for  the  accident  of  the  fall  of  Mont 
gomery  at  Quebec,  and  the  impenetrable  stupidity 
and  incorrigible  bigotry  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
which  alleged  as  one  of  the  grievances  the  colonies 
had  taken  arms  to  redress,  the  act  of  Parliament 
securing  liberty  of  conscience,  freedom  of  worship, 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  209 

and  protection  of  property  to  Roman  Catholics  and 
to  their  Church  in  Canada.  Such  a  statement  of 
the  principles  and  feelings  of  the  colonies  in  arms 
against  the  Government  effectually  crushed  out  any 
sentiment  of  sympathy  that  may  have  existed  among 
the  French  in  Canada.  The  Congress  attempted  to 
repair  its  blunder  by  sending  a  commission  with 
John  Carroll,  Provincial  of  the  Society  of  Jesus  in 
America,  at  its  head,  to  explain  away  to  the  Cana 
dians  the  protest  and  petition  to  the  King. 

The  Congress  did  not  mean  what  they  said,  but 
only  desired  to  enlist  on  their  side  the  bigotry  which 
lay  dormant  in  every  Englishman's  heart.  The 
Roman  Catholics  of  Maryland  would  testify  that 
among  the  Protestants  in  the  English  colonies  there 
was  the  fullest  religious  liberty  and  toleration  for 
Catholics.  But  the  Canadians  very  reasonably  re 
fused  their  confidence  to  a  policy  which  consisted 
of  falsehood  and  deception.  They  could  have  no 
guarantee  that  they  were  not  to  be  the  victims  of 
the  fraud,  and  not  the  English  people.  The  other 
move  against  Canada  was  more  successful.  The 
Quebec  Act  of  1763  had  extended  the  boundaries  of 
Canada  to  the  Ohio  River,  thus  asserting,  ratifying, 
and  executing  the  pretensions  of  the  French  as  to 
that  boundary.  The  great  colonies  on  the  ocean 
shore  were  thus  cut  off  from  the  Mississippi  Valley 
and  the  Great  Lakes. 

Washington  understood  and  appreciated  the  con 
tinental  conditions  flowing  from  the  control  of  the 
inland  waters  and  lands — i.e.,  development  and  com 
merce.  When,  therefore,  a  young  Virginian  frontiers 
man,  scout,  hunter,  surveyor,  prospector — George 
Rogers  Clark — came  forward  with  a  proposition  for 


2io  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

the  conquest  of  the  Western  country,  to  Governor 
Patrick  Henry,  during  the  winter  of  lyyy-'yS,  Wash 
ington  supported  the  movement  with  all  his  in 
fluence;  and  early  in  1778  all  the  country  north 
west  of  the  Ohio  was  conquered  by  Clark  and  an 
nexed  to  Virginia  as  the  "  County  of  Illinois."  The 
strategy  of  the  resistance  was  to  create  cohesion 
and  fraternity  among  the  people  of  the  different 
colonies,  to  evade  the  British  in  the  open  field  and 
on  the  high  sea,  to  expand  the  power  of  the  colonies 
by  territorial  extension,  to  confine  the  enemy  to  the 
ports,  and  protect  the  interior  from  them.  Washing 
ton  believed  in  waging  a  waiting  war,  in  exhausting 
his  enemy — so  far  from  his  source  of  supplies — by 
delay,  in  the  firm  conviction  that  the  finances  must 
break  down  and  war  cease  from  very  exhaustion. 
War  of  invasion  requires  greater  efforts  and  greater 
sacrifices  than  war  of  defense.  Invasion  is  volun 
tary,  and  may  cease  at  any  moment  the  invader  wills 
it.  It  therefore  requires  energy  and  determination, 
as  well  as  enormous  expenditure  of  material  re 
sources  of  men  and  money. 

But  defense  is  a  matter  of  pure  necessity  ;  it  is 
the  protection  of  home  and  property,  as  well  as  of 
life  and  liberty.  Invasion  is  at  a  distance  from  the 
base.  Defense  is  on  the  base  itself.  Every  pound 
of  food  and  forage  used  by  the  British  troops  in 
Boston,  New  York,  or  Philadelphia  was  brought  from 
England  or  Halifax,  while  the  Continental  army  was 
fed  by  the  neighborhood.  It  was  impossible  to  drive 
the  British  out  of  the  seaports  without  sea  force.  It 
was  equally  impossible  for  the  British  to  penetrate 
the  interior.  Sir  John  Burgoyne  and  Sir  William 
Howe  had  both  tried  it  with  disastrous  conse- 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  2II 

quences.  The  strategy  of  the  war,  therefore,  was  to 
be  defense  and  delay,  as  long  as  the  dominion  of  the 
sea  was  wielded  by  the  British. 

But  Washington  argued  that  the  maritime  nations 
could  not  and  would  not  let  slip  such  an  opportunity 
to  emancipate  commerce  and  to  create  a  rival  to 
the  maritime  control  of  Great  Britain.  Strategy,  the 
direction  and  control  of  military  force  toward  great 
objects,  is  the  product  of  great  genius,  great  will, 
great  intelligence.  The  strategy  of  the  Revolution, 
elaborated  and  created  by  Washington,  was  the  result 
of  all  these,  and  therefore  it  was  grand,  wise,  and 
all-embracing.  Skillful  tactics,  the  management  of 
troops  in  actual  contact  with  the  enemy,  is  the  re 
sult  of  experience.  This,  of  course,  the  Virginia 
colonel  did  not  have,  and  therefore  his  tactics  were 
defective,  weak,  and  inefficient. 

The  campaign  of  Schuyler  and  Gates  against 
Burgoyne ;  of  Gates  and  Lafayette  and  Greene  against 
Cornwallis;  the  defense  of  the  line  of  the  Hudson 
and  the  Delaware  ;  the  concentration  by  interior  lines 
on  Yorktown,  were  all  parts  of  the  same  wise,  strong 
strategy,  and  exhibit  the  highest  qualities  of  general 
ship.  But  the  dispositions  at  Long  Island  and  at 
Brandywine,  at  both  of  which  places  he  was  flanked, 
and  the  attempted  movement  of  converging  columns 
at  Germantown  and  Trenton,  both  of  which  failed  to 
be  carried  out  as  projected,  all  show  the  inexperienced 
soldier.  He  had  seen  Braddock's  two  thousand  men  in 
battle  destroyed  by  bad  handling,  and  had  absolutely 
no  experience  in  tactical  movement  of  troops  on  the 
field  of  battle  except  that  once,  and  his  tactics  were 
bad.  Just  as,  in  the  beginning  of  the  war  between 
the  States,  in  1861  there  was  no  soldier  below  Gen- 
15 


212  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

eral  Scott  who  had  ever  commanded  a  regiment  in 
battle,  and  none  of  them  had  ever  seen  a  brigade 
movement  under  fire.  At  the  first  battle  of  Manas- 
sas,  July  21,  1861,  McDowell's  plan  of  battle  was 
faultless,  if  he  had  had  veteran  officers  and  troops 
to  execute  it.  He  moved  round  his  adversary's 
flank,  and  there,  marching  down  the  right  bank  of 
Bull  Run,  extended  and  re-enforced  his  line  as  each 
ford  or  bridge  was  uncovered.  His  movement  had 
been  executed  with  the  accuracy  of  a  game  of  chess, 
until  Johnston's  unexpected  attack  on  his  flank  gave 
him  checkmate.  Beauregard's  reply  move  was  to 
cross  Bull  Run  and  capture  McDowell's  reserve  and 
supplies,  and  cut  off  his  army;  and  this  failed  from 
the  inexperience  of  his  officers. 

Washington  attempted  Beauregard's  move  at 
Brandywine,  and  failed  from  precisely  the  same 
cause.  His  apparent  recklessness  in  battle  was 
prompted  by  the  same  reason.  He  knew  what  he 
wanted  done.  He  could  not  get  it  done  by  orders 
or  agents,  so  he  undertook  to  do  it  himself.  It  was 
a  matter  of  cold,  calculating  necessity.  He  was  too 
large  a  man — had  too  firm  a  hold  on  a  fiery,  tem 
pestuous  nature — knew  his  own  limitations  too  well 
to  ever  permit  himself  the  enjoyment  of  letting  him 
self  loose  in  battle.  His  business  was  to  see,  to 
think,  and  to  direct.  The  mere  fighting  could  well 
be  left  to  people  whose  business  it  was  to  attend  to 
that  department.  The  exhilaration  of  combat  is  an 
excitement  that  a  great  man — leader  of  men — never 
permits  himself.  The  stimulant  rouses  the  heart  to 
quicker  pulsations,  drives  the  blood  with  faster 
throbs,  charges  the  batteries  of  the  brain,  until  the 
great  general  in  battle  becomes  one  ganglion  of 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  213 

nerves,  with  twenty  senses,  each  acting  with  elec 
trical  force  and  precision. 

He  sees  everything,  hears  everything,  under 
stands  everything  above  sight,  and  hearing,  and 
judgment.  The  present  is  photographed  on  his 
brain  as  the  future  is  displayed  to  his  heart,  and 
he  acts  on  inspiration,  not  logic.  Washington  did 
not  have  this  genius.  Battle  roused  him  physically, 
but  not  so  much  intellectually,  and  when  he  could 
not  get  done  what  he  saw  was  necessary  and  which 
he  wanted  done,  he  attempted  to  do  it  himself. 
Hence  his  attempt  to  rally  the  rout  at  Brandywine; 
hence  his  throwing  himself  before  his  retreating  line 
at  Germantown,  until  Sullivan  led  his  horse  out; 
hence  his  establishing  himself  within  forty  yards  of 
the  charging  line  of  British  bayonets  at  Princeton, 
until  his  leading  regiments  could  be  brought  up  to 
him  and  take  the  place  from  which  Mercer's  troops 
had  just  been  driven.  These  incidents  were  not  ex 
hibitions  of  the  gaudium  certaminis,  or  the  fury  of 
fighting,  at  all ;  they  were  the  struggles  of  the  inex 
perienced  soldier  to  repair  disaster  caused  by  his 
inexperienced  officers  and  men.  But  he  was  master 
of  the  strategy  of  the  struggle.  That  was  to  pro 
tract  resistance,  keep  an  army  in  the  field,  pen  up 
the  enemy  in  the  ports,  until  a  foreign  alliance  gave 
him  a  chance  on  the  sea. 

France  was  the  historical,  logical,  necessary  ally 
of  rebellion  in  the  British  Empire.  Every  attack  on 
the  hereditary  enemy  within  her  own  dominions,  for 
ten  generations,  had  come  from  France,  and  it  was 
mathematically  certain  from  the  first  that,  as  soon 
as  France  was  convinced  that  rebellion  promised 
revolution,  she  would  aid  it  with  all  her  force.  The 


214 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


news  of  the  treaty  of  alliance,  then,  which  had  been 
concluded  February  6,  1778,  was  precisely  what  he 
expected;  and  when  war  was  declared  by  Great 
Britain,  Washington  well  knew  that  it  must  be  fol 
lowed  by  war  with  Spain. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  crossed  over  to  Staten  Island 
on  June  3oth,  where  he  was  securely  bottled  up  by 
Washington,  who  promptly  took  position  on  the 
Hudson.  On  July  8th  —  a  week  afterward  —  the 
French  fleet  appeared  off  the  Capes  of  the  Dela 
ware,  under  command  of  Lieutenant  General  the 
Count  D'Estaing.  After  communicating  with  the 
shore  it  sailed  for  Sandy  Hook.  The  British  fleet  in 
the  harbor  was  far  inferior  to  the  French  outside, 
and  Washington  sent  his  aids — Laurens  and  Hamil 
ton — promptly  to  the  French  general  admiral  to 
propose  a  joint  attack  on  New  York.  No  men  ac 
cept  kindly  the  command  of  men  of  different  pro 
fessions,  and  sailors  no  more  like  command  of 
soldiers  than  soldiers  would  that  of  sailors;  and 
the  French  admiral  did  not  enjoy  the  command 
of  the  American  general.  The  bar  of  New  York 
was  found  to  impose  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  the 
great  French  line  of  battle  ships;  and  Washington's 
dream  of  the  two  previous  years — of  the  capture  of 
a  British  army  by  aid  of  a  co-operating  naval  force 
— was  abandoned  at  that  point. 

Another  place,  however,  offered  opportunity. 
After  the  expulsion  of  the  British  from  Boston,  New 
England  had  been  free  from  the  enemy,  except  that 
Lord  Percy  had  made  a  lodgment  at  Newport,  in 
Rhode  Island,  where  the  British  commanders  had 
ever  since  maintained  a  considerable  force.  Instead 
of  concentrating  and  forcing  the  line  of  the  Hudson, 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  215 

and  thus  isolating  New  England,  British  strategy 
consisted  of  threats,  occupation  of  seaports,  raids 
on  exposed  rural  districts,  and  harrying  defenseless 
towns  and  villages.  War  on  women  and  children 
sometimes,  though  rarely,  unnerves  the  arms  of  men 
in  the  field;  it  more  generally  braces  them.  But  for 
two  years  this  outlying  post  of  New  York  was  kept 
up.  Sir  Henry  Clinton  used  it  to  worry  Washington 
and  to  make  him  loose  his  grip  on  the  Hudson  to 
defend  Connecticut.  After  Lord  Percy's  departure 
for  home,  the  command  devolved  eventually  on  Sir 
Robert  Piggott,  an  accomplished  soldier  and  a  gen 
tleman,  under  whom  the  garrison  was  increased  to 
six  thousand  men. 

Newport  and  New  York  were  the  only  places  in 
the  United  States  pressed  by  British  feet,  and,  as 
the  latter  could  not  be  attacked  by  the  allies,  the 
former  was  considered  the  next  point  to  move  on. 
John  Sullivan,  of  New  Hampshire,  had  been  in  com 
mand  at  Providence  since  the  spring,  and  Washing 
ton  now  sent  him  fifteen  hundred  picked  men,  under 
Greene,  a  native  of  the  country,  and  whose  Rhode 
Island  brigade  had  been  the  smartest,  best  equipped, 
best  drilled,  and  best  disciplined  corps  at  Boston. 

D'Estaing  arrived  off  the  harbor  of  Newport,  July 
29th,  and  it  was  agreed  between  him  and  Sullivan 
that  a  joint  landing  should  be  made  and  a  concerted 
attack  pressed.  Sullivan  moved  promptly,  as  he  al 
ways  did,  and  seized  Butts  Hill,  an  outlying  promi 
nence  where  there  was  a  British  battery;  which 
exploit  hurt  the  feelings  of  the  French,  to  whom 
"the  doing"  was  not  as  important  as  the  "manner 
of  doing  it  ";  and  this  "  manner  "  not  being  exactly 
according  to  the  agreement,  they  became  affronted. 


2l6  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Just  then,  however,  Lord  Howe  appeared  in  the 
offing  with  a  British  fleet.  Such  a  challenge  no 
French  gentleman  could  possibly  refuse,  no  matter 
how  momentous  the  consequences  of  accepting  it, 
and  D'Estaing  re-embarked  his  troops  and  sailed  out 
to  attack  the  British.  But  a  storm  fiercer  than  the 
heaviest  ordnance  drove  both  enemies  over  the  face 
of  the  deep,  and  gave  them  full  occupation  to  save 
themselves  instead  of  destroying  each  other.  It  was 
not  until  August  2oth  that  D'Estaing  brought  his 
shattered  fleet  into  harbor,  and  then  decided  to  take 
his  troops  and  his  ships  to  Boston  and  refit. 

Sullivan  remonstrated  and  Lafayette  pleaded  with 
no  avail,  and  the  Frenchman  sailed  away  from  the 
point  of  contact  with  the  enemy.  This  was  the  sec 
ond  failure  to  secure  cordial  co-operation  between 
French  and  English,  between  Saxon  and  Gaul.  Many 
a  man  in  General  Sullivan's  command  bore  a  fire 
lock  which  his  father  had  carried  at  Louisburg 
against  the  French,  and  a  sword  which  his  grand 
father  had  worn  in  fights  against  French  and  In 
dians.  It  was  a  sore  test  of  human  nature  to  ask 
these  men  to  give  their  hearts  to  the  French,  who 
on  the  first  trial  of  friendship  had  failed  them — as 
they  felt,  and  as  Sullivan  said  in  a  public  proclama 
tion.  Not  the  least  of  the  difficulties  with  which 
Washington  struggled  from  this  time  until  York- 
town,  in  October,  1781,  was  the  constant  effort  to 
smooth  the  sensibilities  of  the  susceptible  French, 
and  to  appease  their  insatiable  demand  for  honor, 
glory,  and  consideration. 

As  soon  as  the  fleet  appeared  on  the  coast  he  had 
opened  communications  with  them  with  a  tact,  a  deli 
cacy,  and  a  finesse  which  nothing  could  surpass.  He 


THE   FRENCH   ALLIANCE   AGAIN.  2I/ 

sent  Laurens — French  in  blood,  in  manners,  in  lan 
guage — and  Hamilton — West  Indian  by  birth — two 
youths  as  perfect  specimens  of  cultured  chivalry  as 
ever  won  spurs  or  bore  sword.  Personal  appear 
ance,  deportment,  air,  produce  a  profound  and  last 
ing  impression  on  human  nature,  and  these  brilliant 
young  staff  officers  only  prepared  the  minds  of  the 
Frenchmen  for  the  appearance  of  their  chief.  The 
natural  gravity  and  grace  of  Washington's  carriage, 
the  grand  proportions  of  the  man,  the  vigor  of  his 
intellect  and  the  clearness  of  his  views,  at  once  sub 
dued  the  respect  and  conquered  the  allegiance  of  all, 
from  general  and  admiral  to  the  line  and  the  ranks. 

In  letters  which  are  absolutely  unparalleled  for 
delicacy,  for  elegance,  for  convincing  logic,  for  ap 
peals  to  chivalric  sentiment,  he  persuaded,  he  con 
vinced,  he  led  his  allies  to  follow  his  directions.  His 
difficulty  was  enormously  increased  by  the  character 
of  the  French  force.  It  was  a  mixed  army  and  navy, 
under  command  of  a  soldier.  So,  to  the  jealousies 
of  race  and  religion  were  added  those  of  the  States 
on  the  one  side  and  those  of  the  army  and  navy  on 
the  other.  Washington's  problem  was  to  keep  in 
touch,  on  friendly  terms,  the  Puritan  and  the  Cav 
alier,  the  soldier  and  the  sailor,  the  Saxon  and  the 
Gaul,  and  so  imbue  them  with  a  common  sentiment 
that  they  could  begot  to  act  in  a  common  enterprise. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

ARNOLD    AND    ANDRE* THE    FRENCH    AGAIN. 

DURING  this  period  occurred  an  incident  which 
tested  Washington's  character  as  much  as  any  inci 
dent  of  his  illustrious  career — the  episode  of  the 
treason  of  Arnold  and  the  execution  of  Andre*.  If 
in  the  summer  of  1775,  before  Boston,  during  the 
ensuing  winter  before  Quebec,  or  after  the  campaign 
of  Saratoga,  any  officer  of  rank  in  the  Continental 
army  had  been  requested  to  name  the  soldier  who 
would  most  distinguish  himself  for  gallant  achieve 
ment,  and  who  would  win  the  largest,  most  enduring 
reputation  among  all  his  comrades,  he  would  beyond 
doubt  have  selected  Benedict  Arnold,  of  Connecti 
cut.  Of  a  superb  figure,  generous  feelings,  chivalric 
carriage,  strikingly  handsome  features,  he  was  "the 
bravest  of  the  brave,"  and  at  once  attracted  the  at 
tention  of  the  commander  in  chief,  and  so  deeply 
impressed  him  that  he  intrusted  him  with  the  im 
portant  command  of  the  expedition  through  the 
snows  and  rocks  and  forests  and  torrents  of  Maine 
to  the  capture  of  Quebec. 

The  intelligence,  the  fortitude,  the  perseverance 
with  which  Arnold  prosecuted  this  expedition  en 
tirely  justified  the  confidence  and  judgment  of  Wash 
ington.  He  would  have  taken  Quebec  had  he  not 
been  wounded  and  Montgomery  killed  at  the  same 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE—  THE  FRENCH   AGAIN. 


moment  of  their  assault  of  this  fortress.  Arnold 
was  taken  prisoner,  and,  after  the  loss  of  more 
than  a  year  of  his  military  career,  exchanged,  and 
returned  to  duty  while  the  army  was  before  New 
York.  At  the  investment  of  and  attack  on  and  ca 
pitulation  by  Burgoyne,  Arnold  had  acted  the  most 
brilliant  part  ;  and  his  leadership,  his  gallantry,  his 
spirit,  more  than  that  of  any  one  man,  had  held  the 
American  lines  to  their  work  and  showed  them  the 
way  to  victory.  He  was  wounded  there  again,  and, 
instead  of  being  thanked  or  promoted,  was  snubbed 
by  the  Congress  and  ignored  by  the  Board  of  War. 
His  juniors  were  jumped  over  his  head,  and  his  feel 
ings  mortified  by  constant  slights. 

Washington  had  a  warm  feeling  for  the  brilliant, 
handsome  soldier,  and  sympathized  deeply  with  his 
mortification.  To  soothe  his  feelings  and  mark  his 
appreciation  of  him,  while  his  wound  disqualified 
him  from  service  in  the  field  he  ordered  him  to  the 
command  of  Philadelphia.  He  ought  to  have  known 
that  Arnold  was  not  the  man  for  such  duty.  To  be 
the  military  governor  of  a  city  in  time  of  war,  when 
it  was  necessary  to  enforce  the  civil  law  with  military 
force  and  control  the  troops  by  martial  law,  requires 
a  mixture  of  coolness,  patience,  tact,  sagacity,  and 
firmness  that  Arnold  did  not  possess.  And  when  the 
civil  population  to  be  governed  is  divided  into  fierce 
factions  by  race,  religion,  or  politics,  the  difficulties 
are  ten  thousand  times  multiplied. 

The  selection  of  Arnold  for  such  duty  was  prob 
ably  the  most  injudicious  possible.  Arnold  had  been 
born  and  bred  in  a  social  sphere  entirely  different 
from  that  to  which  his  rank  as  brigadier  general  intro 
duced  him.  He  had  been  a  druggist  and  bookseller 


220  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

in  Hartford,  Conn.  Social  position  and  attentions 
are  over-valued  by  those  who  have  never  possessed 
or  enjoyed  them,  and  when  Arnold  assumed  command 
in  Philadelphia,  he  was  immediately  inordinately  in 
fluenced  by  the  consideration  of  a  rich,  luxurious, 
highly  refined  society.  Probably  a  soldier  is  con 
trolled  by  no  force  as  completely,  as  suddenly,  and 
as  temporarily  as  that  of  beautiful,  cultivated,  and 
rich  women.  To  a  man  from  Arnold's  sphere  of  life 
the  habit  of  command,  the  assertion  of  authority,  the 
consummate  ability  to  direct  and  control  men  and 
affairs  displayed  by  them,  is  a  revelation.  He  had 
never  seen  such  women  in  the  sphere  from  which  he 
came,  and  he  had  never  imagined  that  such  women 
could  exist.  His  mother,  sisters,  cousins  were  good, 
industrious,  faithful  housewives ;  but  women  who 
could  talk  intelligently  with  the  most  intelligent 
men  on  the  topics  of  which  the  latter  were  masters; 
whose  information  was  as  large  as  that  of  men ; 
whose  business  it  was  to  know;  whose  judgment  of 
character  and  of  motives  was  instinctive  and  unerr 
ing,  were  creatures  of  a  world  of  which  Benedict 
Arnold  had  no  conception. 

Forces  which  overwhelmed  Arnold  would  have 
passed  unfelt  over  Charles  Lee,  Laurens,  or  Hamil 
ton.  The  highly  organized,  subtle,  irresistible  influ 
ence  of  the  social  machine  known  as  "  society  "  en 
veloped,  permeated,  absolutely  controlled  the  plain 
Connecticut  farmer's  son.  As  commanding  officer 
of  the  principal  city  of  America,  which  in  wealth, 
luxury,  fashion,  and  style  far  surpassed  all  others; 
which  during  the  preceding  year  had  been  entertain 
ing  the  gentlemen  and  nobility  who  were  with  the 
army  under  Sir  William  Howe  and  Sir  Henry  Clin- 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.   221 

ton,  Arnold  occupied  a  conspicuous  place.  His  rank 
drew  to  him  social  attention  that  required  handsome 
quarters,  uniforms,  coaches,  liveries,  horses,  balls, 
and  dinners.  He  took  the  Penn  palace,  the  hand 
somest  residence  in  the  city,  on  the  pay  of  a  briga 
dier  general.  Women  always  attack  the  commander 
of  the  invading  force,  and  when  the  American  briga 
dier  assumed  command  of  the  Continental  capital 
the  court  circle  measured  him  at  once,  and  captured 
him  without  a  struggle  on  his  part  or  theirs.  He 
was  handsome,  he  was  vain,  he  was  brave,  he  was 
generous ;  what  easier  prey  would  a  beautiful  woman 
want,  and  who  could  be  quicker  made  captive  ? 

The  belles  of  Sir  William's  staff,  the  dames  of  the 
ridiculous  mock  tournament  with  which  belles  and 
beaux  had  complimented  his  departure,  overwhelmed 
the  new  commander  with  attentions  and  flattery. 
"At  Arnold's  balls  were  not  only  'common  Tory 
women '  (notoriously  loyal  ladies),  but  the  wives 
and  daughters  of  Tories  who  were  even  then  in 
arms  against  their  country  in  the  invader's  camp 
in  New  York,"  wrote  Joseph  Reed,  President  of  the 
Council  of  Pennsylvania.  But,  worse  than  that, 
Miss  Margaret  Shippen,  one  of  the  Tory  beauties 
who  had  been  one  of  the  ladies  "of  the  blended 
rose  "  at  the  Howe  Mischianza,  had  captured  Arnold 
on  sight.  She  agreed  to  marry  him  for  then,  as  be 
fore  and  since  it  has  been  deemed  wise  and  prudent 
for  people  on  debatable  ground  to  have  hostages  to 
fortune  on  either  side,  and  in  the  doubt  between  re 
bellion  or  victory,  revolution  or  glory,  it  was  good 
for  the  Shippens,  a  solid  Tory  family,  to  have  a 
daughter,  wife  of  one  of  the  most  distinguished  rebel 
generals.  The  proposed  alliance  still  further  en- 


222  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

raged  the  Philadelphia  Whigs,  and  through  Joseph 
Reed,  and  his  council,  they  were  not  long  in  making 
their  fangs  felt,  besides  their  hiss. 

The  Congress  had  made  five  major  generals  over 
Arnold's  head,  on  the  excuse  that  Connecticut  already 
had  two.  Not  one  of  them  compared  in  service,  in 
talents,  in  ability,  or  in  achievement  with  Arnold, 
and  he  naturally  and  properly  resigned.  Washing 
ton  induced  him  to  withhold  his  resignation  for  the 
present,  and  he  then  proceeded  to  organize  a  settle 
ment  of  old  soldiers  in  western  New  York  in  co 
operation  with  George  Clinton,  his  comrade  of  Still- 
water  and  Saratoga,  on  lands  granted  him  by  the 
Legislature  of  New  York.  While  thus  engaged  in 
preparing  to  withdraw  from  the  military  service,  the 
President  and  Council  of  Pennsylvania  preferred 
charges  against  him  to  the  Congress,  for  peculation, 
extortion,  and  misbehavior  in  his  office  of  Military 
Governor  of  Philadelphia,  and  directed  copies  of  the 
charges  to  be  forwarded  to  the  Governor  of  each 
State. 

Arnold  promptly  returned  to  Philadelphia  and 
demanded  an  investigation,  which  was  given  him  by 
a  committee  of  Congress.  The  committee  reported 
him  not  guilty,  on  all  the  specifications  except  the 
improper  use  of  some  army  wagons  to  haul  private 
property  out  of  danger,  and  irregularity  in  granting 
a  pass.  This  was  a  triumph  for  Arnold,  but  Reed 
and  the  council  preferred  new  charges  on  the  alle 
gation  of  newly  discovered  evidence.  The  Con 
gress  referred  the  charges  to  the  Council  and  As 
sembly  of  Pennsylvania,  and  they  were  eventually 
brought  before  a  court-martial,  April  3,  1779.  Reed 
secured  delay  to  gather  evidence,  and  the  charges 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE   FRENCH  AGAIN.   223 

and  court  hung  over  his  head  until  December  of 
that  year.  Miss  Shippen,  like  a  high-spirited  and 
warm-hearted  woman,  promptly  took  place  by  her 
lover's  side  and  married  him,  in  the  face  of  the 
charges,  the  court,  and  the  Congress,  thus  testifying 
her  faith  in  him  and  her  contempt  for  them.  During 
all  this  harassing  delay  General  Arnold  was  in  Phila 
delphia,  with  nothing  to  do  but  wait  on  his  mistress 
and  wife. 

The  French  alliance  was  genuinely  distasteful  to 
him,  as  it  was  to  very  many  ardent  patriots.  Noth 
ing  but  absolute,  dire,  pressing,  extreme  necessity, 
and  the  conduct  of  the  English  Administration  at 
home  and  their  Hessian  allies  here,  reconciled  the 
English  in  America  to  an  alliance  with  their  hered 
itary  foes  to  fight  against  their  own  flesh  and  blood. 
The  change  of  the  issue  of  the  war,  from  a  resistance 
for  reform  to  a  war  for  disunion,  also  had  alienated 
some  and  cooled  many  patriots.  This  was  particu 
larly  so  in  Philadelphia.  Arnold  had  no  Whig  asso 
ciates.  The  members  of  Congress  from  the  Southern 
States  were  all  gentlemen,  as  were  many  of  them 
from  the  Middle  States  and  some  from  New  Eng 
land.  Arnold  was  a  vulgarian,  a  snob  cutis  et  in  cute. 
He  believed  that  fine  clothes,  fine  style,  luxurious 
living  made  the  highest  type  of  men  and  women,  and 
he  imitated  them.  The  gentlemen  of  the  Congress — 
plain  men  like  Madison,  of  Virginia;  simple-minded, 
frank  men  like  Carroll,  of  Maryland,  or  Laurens,  of 
South  Carolina — were  not  congenial  to  this  swelling 
roysterer,  nor  they  to  him.  He  was  thrown  more  and 
more  under  the  influence  of  the  Tory  society  of  his 
wife's  family.  It  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  neither  she 
nor  they  ever  imagined,  stimulated,  or  participated 


224  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

in  the  turpitude  which  was  being  conceived  and  trans 
acted  by  Arnold  under  cover  of  their  hospitality. 

The  Tories  of  the  Revolution  for  these  three 
generations  have  been  held  up  to  universal  execra 
tion  in  America,  but  surely  it  is  time  now  to  see 
something  of  their  side  of  the  quarrel.  They  em 
braced  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  almost 
without  exception,  the  great  landholders  of  New 
York,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  and  the  de 
voted  Jacobite  population  of  the  Carolinas.  The 
education,  the  wealth,  the  culture  of  the  Middle 
States  was  largely  on  the  side  of  the  Crown.  For 
five  years  the  revolutionary  government  of  New 
York  dared  not  call  a  General  Assembly,  for  fear 
that  it  would  make  terms  with  Colonel  William 
Tryon,  the  Royal  Governor;  and  members  of  Con 
gress  from  Pennsylvania  were  open  in  their  expres 
sions  of  desire  for  peace. 

Loyalty  in  its  highest  form — devotion  to  duty, 
absolutely  regardless  of  consequences — exhibited  it 
self;  and  to  this  day,  in  Nova  Scotia  and  New 
Brunswick,  people  may  be  found,  descendants  of 
American  Tories,  who  look  back  with  longing  eyes 
to  the  lovely  homes  their  ancestors  gave  up  for 
their  duty  and  their  faith.  With  Arnold  in  the  state 
of  mind  produced  by  the  unjust,  malignant  Whig  at 
tack  of  General  Reed  and  his  associates,  he  irresisti 
bly  turned  to  the  other  side — the  side  where  honor 
was  cherished,  valor  rewarded,  and  great  achievement 
recognized. 

Between  Philadelphia  and  New  York  there  were 
a  thousand  underground  channels  of  communica 
tion.  During  the  war  between  the  States  the  fash 
ion  papers  were  received  as  regularly  in  Richmond, 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.  225 

though  not  as  promptly,  as  in  Washington;  and  in 
1779  there  was  no  difficulty,  and  little  danger,  in  hav 
ing  letters  delivered  in  either  place  from  the  other. 
Here  Arnold  began  to  write  letters  to  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  inquiring  what  terms  could  be  made  by  an 
American  officer  of  rank,  who  was  disgusted  at  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  French  alli 
ance.  The  intrigue  was  turned  over  by  Clinton  to 
Major  John  Andre,  his  adjutant  general  and  gen 
eral  manager.  Andre  was  the  adroit  man  about 
headquarters.  He  knew  everything,  and  was  ap 
pealed  to  by  everybody,  on  every  subject.  His 
mind  turned  instinctively  to  intrigue,  and  he  was  an 
adept  in  its  arts,  trained  by  natural  tendency  and 
personal  experience. 

At  the  siege  of  Charleston,  Clinton  sent  him  into 
the  beleaguered  city  as  a  spy,  and  he  remained  there 
undetected  until  its  surrender  and  the  capitulation 
of  Lincoln's  army.  He  represented  himself  as  a 
Virginian  officer  of  the  Virginian  line.  He  resided 
at  the  house  of  Edward  Shrewsberry,  a  respectable 
citizen  suspected  of  disloyalty  to  the  patriot  side, 
and  after  the  capitulation  was  introduced  by  Shrews- 
berry  to  his  friends  as  Major  Andre".  The  proof  of 
this  is  set  forth  in  detail  in  William  Johnson's  Life  of 
Greene,  and  was  derived  by  the  author,  a  justice  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  and  son  of 
a  patriot,  from  contemporary  authority  and  personal 
testimony.  Therefore  when  the  anonymous  letters, 
signed  "  Gustavus,"  came  to  headquarters,  Major 
Andre  was  the  party  qualified  to  answer  them.  As 
"  John  Anderson,"  he  conducted  the  correspondence 
during  the  summer  of  1779,  until  he  accompanied 
Clinton  on  his  Southern  expedition,  when  he  made 


226  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

his  little  excursion  into  the  domain  of  the  secret 
service  and  lived  in  Charleston  as  a  spy.  Returning 
from  Charleston,  he  resumed  the  correspondence  be 
tween  "  Gustavus  "  and  "  John  Anderson."  On  Janu 
ary  26,  1780,  the  court-martial  had  found  Arnold 
guilty  of  the  same  specifications  as  the  former  com 
mittee  of  Congress  had  determined  against  him,  and 
sentenced  him  to  be  reprimanded  in  general  orders. 
Washington's  reprimand  was  conveyed  as  mildly  as 
it  was  possible  for  language  to  express  it.  Of  course 
it  only  further  inflamed  Arnold. 

All  history  showed  that  in  a  civil  war  parties  to 
it,  high  and  low,  generals  and  privates,  constantly 
changed  sides.  It  was  not  desertion.  It  was'only  a 
change  of  opinion,  necessarily  required  by  a  change 
of  condition.  Monk  had  done  it,  Marlborough  had 
done  it ;  why  not  Arnold  ?  The  event  justified  the 
act,  if  success  crowned  the  move.  This  was  the  line 
of  reflection  forced  on  Arnold  by  circumstances. 
But,  bold,  blatant,  and  bankrupt  as  he  was  in 
fortune  and  in  fame,  a  simple  desertion  was  not 
enough.  He  aspired  to  the  highest  rewards,  and  he 
proposed  to  earn  them  by  the  most  superlative  in 
famy.  He  applied  to  Washington  for  the  command 
of  West  Point,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  due  to 
soothe  his  wounded  honor,  lacerated  by  the  court- 
martial,  its  decision,  and  the  reprimand  ;  and  he  did 
this  with  the  distinctly  formed  purpose  in  his  mind 
of  selling  his  post  for  money!  No  such  idea  was 
conceivable  by  the  high-bred  and  high-minded  To 
ries  of  the  Shippen  family  or  the  Philadelphia  so 
ciety  of  which  it  was  the  leader.  Such  an  idea  could 
only  have  been  conceived  in  the  base  mind  of  the 
Connecticut  village  apothecary  and  bookseller,  ad- 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH   AGAIN.  227 

mitted  solely  on  account  of  his  rank  into  the  asso 
ciation  of  ladies  and  gentlemen. 

Washington  ought  to  have  known  better.  He 
was  a  good  judge  of  men,  as  his  appreciation  of 
Greene  and  Lafayette,  of  Gates  and  Conway  showed. 
But  he  was  imposed  upon  by  the  showy  qualities  of 
the  conqueror  of  Ticonderoga  and  the  leader  of  the 
forlorn  hope  against  Quebec.  At  the  bottom  of  it 
all  lay  the  feeling  of  sympathy  for  the  wronged,  the 
ardent  desire  to  heal  a  soldier's  wounded  honor.  He 
assigned  Arnold  to  the  command  of  West  Point,  with 
the  distinct  understanding  with  him  that  it  was  the 
key  of  the  Revolution.  This  key  Arnold  promptly 
arranged  to  sell  to  Sir  Henry  Clinton. 

"John  Anderson"  (Andre)  and  "  Gustavus  "  (Ar 
nold)  met  at  Haverstraw  below  West  Point  to  agree 
upon  the  details  of  what  was  to  be  sold  and  what 
was  to  be  paid.  An  American  battery  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  Hudson  soon  drove  down  stream  the 
sloop  of  war  which  had  brought  Andre  up  from  New 
York  for  the  conference.  Thus  left  in  the  American 
lines  by  his  escort,  in  disguise,  he  was  supplied  with 
a  suit  of  citizens'  clothes  and  rode  for  the  British 
lines  all  night.  About  daylight  his  guide  left  him, 
and  shortly  after  he  fell  into  the  hands  of  a  patrol 
from  Arnold's  command,  who  carried  him  to  their 
superior  officer.  The  papers  found  on  Andre  fully 
disclosed  the  proposed  betrayal.  They  were  sent  by 
express  to  Washington  that  morning  returning  from 
an  interview  with  De  Rochambeau  at  Newport,  and, 
by  curious  but  honest  stupidity,  the  American  officer 
forwarded  to  Arnold  a  letter  from  Andre. 

The  express  to  Washington  missed  him  on  the 
road.  The  letter  to  Arnold  found  him  and  the  staff  of 
16 


228  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Washington  at  breakfast  at  the  Beverley  House.  The 
latter  had  stopped  to  examine  the  fortifications  on 
the  other  side  of  the-  river.  Arnold  rose  from  the 
table,  passed  out,  mounted  a  horse  standing  saddled 
and  bridled  by  chance  at  the  door,  and  rode  for  his 
life  to  the  British  vessel  below.  He  succeeded  in 
reaching  it  just  about  the  time  Washington  reached 
West  Point.  Arnold  in  a  word  had  disclosed  his 
project  and  his  danger  to  his  wife.  The  captured 
dispatches  sent  to  Washington  followed  him  and  were 
delivered  to  Hamilton  before  Washington's  arrival. 
He  met  his  chief  coming  from  the  river  to  the  house 
and  informed  him  of  the  treachery  and  escape  of 
Arnold.  Washington  dispatched  Hamilton  to  inter 
cept  Arnold  at  Verplanck's  Point,  but  he  was  too 
late.  Prompt  orders  were  sent  out  to  collect  the 
troops  and  put  the  post  on  the  gut  vive. 

Arnold's  treachery  was  the  severest  blow  that 
Washington  received  during  the  whole  war.  His 
relation  toward  Charles  Lee  was  not  one  of  trust  and 
confidence.  It  was  controlled  by  his  supreme  sense 
of  justice,  for  Lee  was  next  in  rank  to  himself,  and  it 
was  proper  that  he  should  be  treated  with  the  greatest 
consideration.  But  he  did  trust  Arnold.  He  ad 
mired  and  loved  him.  He  wras  a  brilliant,  dashing 
soldier  and  an  able  general,  and  he  sympathized 
deeply  with  him  at  the  injustice  inflicted  on  him  by 
the  Congress.  The  jealousies  and  bickerings  of  Reed 
and  the  Pennsylvania  Whigs,  and  their  attacks  on 
Arnold,  jarred  on  his  feelings.  They  had  sympa 
thized  too  much  with  the  Board  of  War  and  the  Con- 
way  intrigue,  in  impatience  at  the  strategy  of  "  our 
modern  Fabius,"  for  him  to  appreciate  their  distrust 
of  the  "bravest  of  the  brave."  It  was  now  clear  to 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.  229 

him  that  the  instincts  of  the  Congress  and  the  Penn- 
sylvanians  about  Arnold's  character  were  wise,  just, 
and  correct,  and  that  he  had  been  utterly  mistaken. 

His  confidence  in  his  own  judgment  was  shaken 
to  the  core.  Whom  could  he  trust  ?  Who  was  true  ? 
By  what  intrigues  was  he  surrounded  ?  Gates  was 
an  Englishman,  and  had  been  an  enlisted  soldier  ; 
Steuben,  De  Kalb — all  held  important  commands, 
and  may  have  been  shaken  by  the  failing  fortunes 
of  the  Colonial  Confederacy.  Members  of  Congress 
were,  he  knew,  dissatisfied  with  him.  How  far  had 
that  feeling  extended,  and  how  many  were  in  British 
pay  ?  All  these  questions  rose  darkly  for  answer, 
but  his  indomitable  soul  never  quailed. 

Major  John  Andre  was  Sir  Henry  Clinton's  chief 
of  staff.  He  had  been  caught  as  a  spy,  and  was  or 
dered  before  a  court-martial  composed  of  the  ranking 
officers  of  the  American  army,  Lafayette  being  one. 
A  spy  is  not  entitled  to  a  trial.  He  may,  by  the  law 
of  war,  be  shot  or  hung  in  flagrante  delicto.  He  can 
not  surrender.  He  may  not  make  himself  a  prisoner 
of  war.  Now,  the  service  of  a  spy  may  be  patriotic; 
it  maybe  valuable;  it  requires  courage;  but  it  is 
never  the  honorable  service  of  a  soldier.  No  com 
manding  officer  can  order  his  subordinate,  com 
missioned  or  enlisted,  to  doff  his  uniform  and  pene 
trate  the  enemies'  lines,  pretending  to  be  a  friend  and 
betray  them.  The  dangers  from  spies  are  so  great 
that  everywhere,  in  all  wars,  in  all  ages,  the  penalty  of 
detection  has  been  death.  One  single  spy  may  de 
stroy  a  movement,  neutralize  a  combination  of  one 
hundred  thousand  men,  paralyze  an  army,  and  defeat 
a  campaign.  He  may  cost  tens  of  thousands  of  lives 
and  many  millions  of  money.  Therefore  the  doom 


230 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


of  the  spy  discovered  is  death — swift,  sure,  sudden 
death.  Major  Andre  was  found  guilty  and  condemned 
to  death.  He  had  played  a  great  game  and  had  lost 
it,  paying  the  penalty;  and  no  just  man,  British  or 
American,  can  ever  blame  the  American  commander 
in  chief  for  directing  the  execution  of  the  judgment 
of  the  court-martial.  Andre  was  a  bright,  handsome, 
accomplished  young  gentleman.  He  had  been  a 
toast  with  the  loyal  belles  of  Philadelphia  during 
the  occupation.  Every  effort,  appeal,  threat  was 
made  by  the  British  general  to  save  his  staff  officer. 
But  the  South  Carolina  members  of  Congress  knew 
of  Andre's  spy  exploits  in  Charleston,  and  they 
alone  would  have  prevented  pardon  or  commutation 
of  his  sentence,  even  if  his  crime  had  not  been 
such  as  to  preclude  all  possibility  of  mercy. 

Andre  had  gone  into  his  enemy's  lines  under  the 
sacred  protection  of  a  flag  of  truce.  He  had  used 
his  inviolability  to  arrange  a  perfidy  which  might 
have  wrecked  the  cause  of  a  whole  people.  It  would 
have  cost  confiscations,  prosecutions,  hangings  in 
numerable  if  it  had  succeeded,  as  he  and  his  colleague 
in  crime  hoped  and  intended.  It  failed,  and  he  died 
for  it.  As  Washington^  said,  he  was  captured  as  a 
spy,  he  was  tried  as  a  spy,  he  was  convicted  as  a  spy, 
and  he  was  executed  as  a  spy.  He  might,  under  the 
law,  have  been  hanged  five  minutes  after  he  was 
delivered  by  the  patrol  to  their  officer  on  post.  But 
he  was  fairly  tried  and  justly  convicted  and  exe 
cuted.  Washington  never  afterward,  in  conversation, 
mentioned  Arnold's  name.  In  a  letter  to  Greene  he 
expressed  the  opinion  that  Benedict  Arnold  was  of 
so  low  and  base  a  nature  that  he  did  not  think  he 
suffered  from  his  dishonor. 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE—  THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.   231 

After  the  failure  at  Newport  other  feelings  had  to 
be  appeased  as  well  as  the  French,  for  New  Eng- 
landers  had  susceptibilities  as  sensitive  as  those  of 
the  Gaul.  Sullivan — ardent,  high-spirited,  generous, 
chivalric — felt  the  refusal  of  D'Estaing  at  Newport 
like  misbehavior  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy,  and 
he  said  so  in  private  and  in  public,  in  conversation  and 
in  orders  to  the  troops.  And  on  the  drop  of  a  glove 
he  would  have  justified  his  language  and  his  opinions 
with  his  own  sword  against  D'Estaing  or  any  French 
officer  of  proper  rank  on  any  turf  about  Newport  or 
around  Boston.  For  gentlemen — Puritan  and  Cava 
lier,  French  and  English — in  that  generation  believed 
it  the  duty  of  every  one  to  back  his  opinion  with  his 
arm,  and  to  defend  his  honor  with  his  life. 

Lafayette  was  the  kinsman  of  D'Estaing,  and  he 
would  have  challenged  Sullivan,  but  Lafayette  be- 
belonged  to  the  family  of  Washington,  and  Sullivan 
had  saved  Washington's  life  at  Germantown.  Kins 
men  fought  for  kinsmen,  friends  for  friends,  staff  of 
ficers  for  their  chiefs.  General  John  Cadwalader 
challenged  and  fought  General  Thomas  Conway  be 
cause  the  latter  had  written  disrespectfully  of  the 
commander  in  chief.  Colonel  John  Laurens  chal 
lenged  and  fought  Charles  Lee  for  a  similar  offense 
against  his  chief.  But  the  influence  of  Washington 
composed  the  quarrel,  held  Lafayette  in  check,  and 
made  him  an  active  peacemaker  between  the  dis 
cordant  elements.  He  prevented  hostilities,  if  he 
could  not  restore  cordial  feelings.  Besides  these 
jars  between  subordinates,  there  was  a  chill  in  the 
highest  quarters.  It  had  been  much  discussed  in 
Paris  as  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  alliance  and 
the  auxiliary  force,  that  the  whole  should,  be  under 


232  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

French  command.  It  was  not  conceivable,  much 
less  permissible,  that  a  marshal  of  France,  a  lieuten 
ant  general  in  the  army  of  his  most  Christian  Maj 
esty,  should  be  subordinate  to  a  militiaman,  a  rough 
backwoods  hunter,  scout,  and  bushwhacker.  But 
Franklin,  with  intuitive  sagacity,  insisted  that  if  the 
French  went,  they  should  go  as  assistants  and  not  as 
leaders.  He  did  not  possess  the  feelings  or  the  ex 
perience  of  Washington  on  this  subject. 

Washington's  whole  life,  as  also  that  of  his 
father  and  grandfather,  had  been  spent  in  a  struggle 
against  the  French  for  the  Ohio,  and  he  never  di 
vested  himself  of  the  fear  or  the  suspicion  that  if  the 
French  power  was  too  prominent  or  too  predominant 
in  securing  independence  from  Great  Britain,  the 
Canadians  would  gladly  rush  to  their  old  allegiance, 
to  which  they  were  bound  by  ties  of  blood  and  re 
ligion,  and  who  had  been  separated  from  their  mother 
country  only  fifteen  years  before  by  the  Treaty  of 
Paris.  The  sagacity  of  Franklin  and  the  firmness  of 
Washington  saved  the  continent  from  the  re-estab 
lishment  of  French  influence  here,  and  many  woes. 
It  so  happened  that  the  French  never  accomplished 
anything  substantial,  by  land  or  by  water,  from  their 
appearance  in  the  summer  of  1778  until  the  campaign 
of  Yorktown,  in  October,  1781,  where  French  assist 
ance  was  decisive.  The  large  force  of  five  thousand 
men  was  landed,  and  co-operated  with  the  Conti 
nental  army,  but  the  fleets  were  cruising  up  and 
down  in  quest  of  "glory,"  and  undertaking  enter 
prises  independent  of  the  strategy  of  the  commander 
in  chief.  D'Estaing  made  an  attack  on  Savannah  and 
failed,  the  second  French  attempt  thus  proving  dis 
astrous,  and  then  he  sailed  away  for  the  West  Indies. 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.  233 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  withdrew  his  detachment  from 
Rhode  Island  and  concentrated  everything  at  New 
York.  The  British  strategy  of  the  war  abandoned 
New  England,  and  with  it  further  effort  to  seize  the 
line  of  the  Hudson  and  thus  cut  off  the  head  of  the 
rebellion.  It  was  believed  that  something  might  be 
done  in  the  South,  where  population  was  sparse, 
where  slavery  partly  paralyzed  military  resistance, 
and  where  loyalty,  not  more  extensive  than  in  the 
Middle  States  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  and  Penn 
sylvania,  was  more  belligerent  and  aggressive  ;  where 
the  friends  of  the  old  order  backed  their  opinion 
with  their  blood,  their  lives,  and  their  fortunes. 
There  was  not  as  large  a  percentage  of  Tories  in 
the  Carolinas  as  in  Pennsylvania  or  New  York,  but 
the  former  believed  in  standing  up  for  their  princi 
ples,  regardless  of  cost ;  the  latter  were  opposed  to 
disorder,  disturbance,  or  trouble  of  any  kind  for  any 
cause.  Therefore,  Lord  George  Germaine  and  the 
ministry  at  home  determined  to  try  the  plan  of  cut 
ting  off  around  the  edges,  that  of  dividing  through 
the  center  and  across  vital  parts  having  utterly 
failed. 

Washington,  during  the  winter  of  i778-*79,  had 
become  persuaded  that  the  war  in  the  North  was 
over.  After  four  years  campaigning  the  British  oc 
cupied  their  camp  on  Staten  Island,  less  than  when 
Gage  had  evacuated  Boston.  The  year  1779  was 
one  without  hope,  without  energy,  without  fortune 
to  the  Americans.  The  French  auxiliaries  had  par 
alyzed  the  State  governments.  The  people  at  home 
supposed  that  the  coming  of  the  army  and  navy  of 
the  grand  monarch  settled  the  business;  for,  with 
true  provincial  training  and  ideas,  they  exaggerated 


234 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


the  high  qualities  of  the  great  people  on  the  other 
side  of  the  ocean,  whose  generals  were  marquises 
and  earls,  counts  and  barons. 

The  French  alliance  was  of  real  detriment  for  a 
time,  and  exertion  by  the  States,  and  by  the  people 
who  constituted  the  States,  almost  ceased  and  died 
out.  The  finances  flickered  out  as  public  credit 
burned  lower  and  lower,  until  the  currency  issued  by 
Congress,  being  paper  promises  to  pay  bearer,  stipu 
lated  amounts  in  money,  became  absolutely  worth 
less.  The  idea  of  declaring  that  a  piece  of  paper 
was  money,  and  of  fixing  its  value  by  act  of  Congress, 
had  not  then  been  born.  The  pay  of  the  troops 
amounted  to  nothing,  but  even  that  was  not  given 
to  them.  In  the  winter  of  i778-'79  the  New  Jersey 
regiments  refused  to  march  until  they  received  their 
pay — five  months  in  arrears.  They  got  it. 

In  the  spring  the  Connecticut  line  mutinied  for 
their  pay,  followed  by  the  Pennsylvania  line.  Wash 
ington  reduced  these  troops  to  discipline  by  prompt 
firmness;  but  when  a  newly  enlisted  Pennsylvania 
regiment  had  the  audacity  to  follow  the  example  of 
its  elders,  on  tap  of  drum  he  put  it  down,  and  hung 
two  of  the  mutineers.  He  sympathized  with  the  old 
soldiers,  whose  patience  had  been  worn  out  by  starva 
tion,  nakedness,  disease,  and  marches;  they  were 
brought  to  their  senses  by  reason  and  vigorous  force 
firmly  applied.  But  for  a  set  of  green  recruits,  who 
had  never  smelled  powder,  or  marched  barefoot, 
or  lain  out  in  the  snow  and  mud,  or  been  without 
meat  for  three  days,  or  without  meat  or  bread  for 
two — for  such  fellows  to  complain  was  pure  impu 
dence.  He  hung  some  to  satisfy  the  others.  It  did 
satisfy  them !  The  whole  year  was  taken  up  with 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.  235 

appeals  to  the  States  to  strengthen  the  Congress, 
and  to  the  Congress  to  brace  up  the  army. 

Washington  saw  how  the  Congress  was  deterio 
rating  year  by  year.  He  entreated  Henry  to  re-en 
force  Richard  Henry  Lee,  who  was  bearing  on  his 
shoulders  the  support  of  Washington  and  the  army  in 
Congress.  It  has  been  suggested  that  for  some  un 
known  reason  Lee  became  estranged  from  him,  and 
it  has  been  intimated  that  he  sympathized  with,  if  he 
did  not  actually  participate  in,  the  conspiracy  of 
"the  cabal."  This  is  an  error  that  in  justice  to  a 
great  soul  should  be  corrected.  Richard  Henry  Lee 
and  Washington  had  been  comrades  from  boyhood. 
Their  mothers  were  friends  before  them,  and  to  the 
day  that  death  separated  them  their  mutual  respect, 
affection,  and  devotion  knew  no  check  nor  chill. 

During  the  summer  Sir  Henry  Clinton  occupied 
Stony  Point,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Hudson  below 
West  Point,  and  Paulus  Hook,  where  Jersey  city  now 
is,  to  give  him  control  of  a  reach  of  the  river  and 
secure  his  communications  with  his  friends  in  New 
Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  South. 

Washington  was  dissatisfied  with  the  operation  of 
the  French  alliance.  It  accomplished  nothing,  and 
rather  weakened  the  Continentals  than  aided  them. 
He  sent  Lafayette — whom  he  appreciated  as  a  gentle 
man,  a  soldier,  a  man  of  ability,  and  a  true  friend — 
to  France  to  secure  more  troops  and  closer  co-opera 
tion.  He  made  Lafayette  understand  that  the  war 
was  over  in  the  North,  and  must  be  decided  in  the 
South.  Unless  that  section  was  redeemed,  the  prob 
abilities  were  that  with  acknowledgment  of  the  in 
dependence  of  the  Northern  States  would  come  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Spaniards  in  possession  of 


236  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Florida  and  all  the  great  territory  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Cape  Fear  to  the  Mississippi.  She  already 
possessed  the  continent  from  the  Mississippi  to  the 
Pacific,  and  such  an  end  of  the  struggle  would  put 
her  astride,  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  of  the 
continent  from  which  France  had  been  expelled  only 
fifteen  years  before.  If  France  wished  to  avert  such 
a  result,  she  must  join  Washington  in  saving  the 
South  by  a  campaign  in  which  he  must  have  the 
earnest,  loyal  co-operation  of  a  French  fleet  on 
the  sea  and  a  French  army  on  the  land. 

Washington  sent  General  Lincoln  to  South  Caro 
lina  to  take  command,  with  distinct  and  emphatic 
instructions  that  at  every  cost  he  was  to  save  his 
army;  under  no  circumstances  was  he  to  lose  it. 
The  possession  of  posts,  positions,  or  lines  he  was 
too  great  a  soldier  to  value.  The  army  was  the 
vital  force;  it  was  the  right  arm,  the  sword,  to  be 
wielded  by  intelligent  courage;  and  the  absolute 
ultimate,  final  necessity  to  the  cause  was  to  keep  an 
army  in  the  field  at  all  times.  In  June,  1780,  Lin 
coln  lost  Charleston  and  surrendered  his  army,  di 
rectly  contrary  to  the  mature  views  and  distinct 
orders  of  the  commander  in  chief.  The  conquest  of 
the  South  seemed  secure.  Georgia  was  already  re 
constructed,  and  South  Carolina  must  soon  be.  Gen 
eral  "  Mad  "  Anthony  Wayne  surprised  and  captured 
Stony  Point,  as  Lee  did  Paulus  Hook,  and  Sir  Henry 
was  again  pushed  back  to  Manhattan  Island. 

In  July,  1780,  a  French  fleet  arrived,  with  an  army 
of  six  thousand  men  under  command  of  General 
Count  De  Rochambeau,  who  was  to  report,  and  did 
report,  to  the  headquarters  of  the  American  army,  as 
distinctly  subordinate  to  it  and  within  its  command. 


ARNOLD  AND  ANDRE— THE  FRENCH  AGAIN.  237 

This  was  of  enormous  service,  as  it  removed  at  once 
all  the  paralyzing  influence  of  disputes  and  jealousy 
about  rank  and  command.  The  French  contingent 
were  no  longer  allies.  They  were  part  of  the  Ameri 
can  army  and  navy,  and,  like  it,  subject  solely  to  the 
control  of  the  American  commander  in  chief. 

The  Southern  campaign  had  become  the  turning 
point  of  the  war.  Washington  dared  not  leave  New 
York  nor  the  Congress.  If  Sir  Henry  escaped  from 
his  control  he  might  do  serious  damage  along  the 
Hudson  and  up  the  Mohawk  Valley ;  but  if  the  Con 
gress  once  got  away  from  him,  it  was  certain  to 
bring  on  disaster,  so  he  could  not  go  South.  The 
best  man  he  had  was  Greene,  the  Rhode  Island 
blacksmith,  who  during  the  four  years  of  experience, 
observation,  and  meditation  had  matured  into  a  great 
soldier.  Greene,  disgusted  with  Congress,  had,  in 
July,  1780,  resigned  his  place  as  quartermaster  gen 
eral,  and  had  gone  home.  Washington  recalled  him 
into  the  service.  He  was  thoroughly  imbued  with 
Washington's  ideas  of  the  strategy  of  the  war — that 
he  must  never  hold  on  to  a  place  so  as  to  risk  his 
army  ;  he  must  avoid  pitched  battles,  but  wear  his 
enemy  out  by  marching,  by  alarms,  and  by  dis 
ease.  He  was  to  entice  Cornwallis,  who  was  in 
Charleston,  to  leave  his  base,  and  draw  him  into  the 
interior.  The  Briton  breathed  the  sea  air ;  he  lived 
on  the  salt  breeze ;  the  fresh  blasts  from  the  moun 
tains  would  wither  his  energy  and  paralyze  his  vigor. 

Cornwallis  was  to  be  drawn  far  enough  into  the 
interior  to  cut  his  ccmmunications,  then  to  be  sur 
rounded  by  a  blazing  circle  of  militia,  and,  thus  iso 
lated,  destroyed.  Or,  if  that  failed,  and  he  stuck  to 
tide  water,  he  was  to  be  fastened  there  until  the 


238  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

French  fleet  could  blockade  him  from  his  base  and 
the  open  sea,  and  the  allied  armies  could  be  concen 
trated  on  him  to  force  a  capitulation  and  end  the 
war.  This  strategy  was  thought  out  and  discussed 
thoroughly  with  Greene.  Cornwallis  must  be  drawn 
North,  so  as  to  enable  the  concentration  of  the 
Northern  army  from  New  York  with  the  Southern 
army  from  Carolina.  General  Greene  went  South, 
took  charge  of  the  debris  of  Gates,  reorganized  and 
reconstructed  an  army — the  basis  of  it  being  the 
veterans  of  the  Maryland  line — and  assumed  com 
mand  at  Charlotte. 

Morgan,  affronted  at  the  slights  of  the  Board  of 
War — who  constantly  promoted  his  juniors  over  his 
head — had  also  resigned  and  gone  home  to  the  val 
ley  of  Virginia,  but  Camden  brought  him  to  life  at 
once.  "It  was  no  time  to  think  of  rank,"  he  said; 
"  the  country  was  in  danger,  and  every  man  must 
help  to  save  it."  The  Virginians  rallied  around  him. 
The  remnant  of  the  Maryland  line,  consolidated 
into  three  regiments  of  about  one  hundred  each,  was 
as  bright  and  as  highly  tempered  as  a  Toledo  blade, 
in  charge  of  Colonel  John  Eager  Howard.  The 
militia  of  the  two  Carolinas  formed  a  body  of  mount 
ed  gunmen  well  adapted  for  rapid  movement  and 
bush  fighting,  entirely  unequal  to  closed  ranks  and 
leveled  bayonets  in  the  open  field.  With  these 
commanders — Greene,  Morgan,  Howard,  Lee — and 
such  troops,  Washington  commenced  the  first  moves 
in  the  last  stage  of  his  great  game. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  CAMPAIGN  IN  THE  SOUTH. 

THE  failure  of  the  combined  land  and  naval  op 
erations  against  New  York  and  Newport  did  not  dis 
courage  Washington,  or  impair  his  determination  to 
use  the  French  power  on  the  sea,  with  that  of  the 
States  on  the  land,  to  strike  a  decisive  blow.  He  hda 
succeeded  in  the  strategic  move  against  Burgoyne 
in  the  North,  owing  to  the  active  and  zealous  sup 
port  of  New  England.  He  had  failed  in  his  plan  to 
capture  Sir  William  Howe  and  his  army  in  Phila 
delphia,  owing  to  the  treachery  of  Charles  Lee,  who 
withheld  re-enforcements  in  time  to  hold  the  Delaware, 
and  the  failure  of  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  to 
rise  in  the  enemy's  rear  and  on  his  flanks,  as  New 
England  had  done  at  Bennington,  at  Stillwater,  and 
at  Saratoga. 

But  thenceforward  his  main  effort  was  first  to 
get  his  enemy  in  the  South  into  such  a  position  that 
he  could  isolate  him,  by  the  use  of  the  French  fleet, 
from  his  base  of  supplies,  for  the  open  sea  was  the 
British  base;  and,  second,  raise  the  country  on  him, 
surround  him,  capture  him,  end  the  war,  and  achieve 
liberty  and  independence.  He  impressed  on  Lincoln, 
commanding  in  South  Carolina,  that  the  defense  of 
posts,  positions,  and  lines  was  impracticable.  The 
Americans  held  the  interior  line  of  defense.  The 


240  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

British  must  move  on  exterior  lines  of  attack,  and  by 
keeping  the  American  defense  foot  free  it  could  be 
moved  from  point  to  point  as  necessity  required,  and 
always  confront  its  adversary,  extended  on  the  cir 
cumference  of  a  circle,  with  superior  force  moving  on 
the  interior.  The  attempt  to  hold  positions  and  lines 
would  give  the  enemy  the  initiative,  and  he  would 
thus  select  his  own  time  and  place  of  attack.  Lin 
coln,  in  any  and  every  event,  was  to  save  his  army. 
Posts  and  ports,  towns  and  cities,  might  all  be  sur 
rendered  and  retaken.  An  army  taken  captive  was 
an  army  destroyed.  Its  esprit,  its  morale  could  never 
be  resurrected,  even  if  its  men  and  material  could 
be  completely  replaced. 

Washington  was  forced  by  necessity  to  hold  the 
line  of  the  Hudson.  That  and  the  Chesapeake  were 
the  only  two  absolutely  requisite  strategic  conditions 
to  be  maintained;  all  others  might  be  given  up,  as  he 
had  abandoned  Boston  and  New  York  and  Philadel 
phia.  But  local  populations  have  an  intense  horror 
of  the  enemy.  The  feeling  is  somewhat  a  senti 
mental  one,  for  the  rules  of  war  in  modern  times 
forbid  the  outrages  of  earlier  states  of  society. 
Therefore,  when  Sir  Henry  Clinton  and  Cornwallis 
approached  Charleston,  S.  C.,  in  February,  1780, 
there  was  a  unanimous  and  vociferous  outcry  among 
the  South  Carolinians  that  Charleston  should  not 
be  abandoned,  and  Lincoln  allowed  himself  to  be 
cooped  up  there. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton,  finding  he  could  not  loosen 
Washington's  hold  on  the  North  River  by  forays 
along  the  Sound  and  raids  up  the  Hudson,  deter 
mined  to  force  his  hand  by  a  move  in  another  quar 
ter.  He  embarked  eight  thousand  men  at  New 


THE  CAMPAIGN    IN   THE   SOUTH.  241 

York,  and  after  Christmas,  1779,  sailed  for  Savannah, 
with  Cornwallis  second  in  command.  He  was  soon 
followed  by  Lord  Rawdon,  afterward  Earl  of  Moira 
and  Marquis  of  Hastings,  with  three  thousand  more. 
This  move  forced  Washington  to  dispatch  all  his 
Carolina  and  Virginia  troops  to  the  assistance  of 
Lincoln,  together  with  Pulaski  and  his  legion  of 
the  odds  and  ends  of  nations  and  races. 

Clinton  landed  in  South  Carolina,  moved  to  the 
rear  of  Charleston,  cut  the  city  off  from  the  country, 
and  on  May  12,  1780,  Lincoln  surrendered  three 
thousand  Continentals,  with  a  large  supply  of  muni 
tions  of  war.  The  strategic  points  in  the  interior 
were  at  once  occupied,  and  in  June,  Clinton  returned 
to  New  York,  leaving  Lord  Cornwallis  with  five  thou 
sand  regulars  to  consolidate  the  conquest  and  restore 
the  unhappy  country  to  its  allegiance. 

Georgia,  before  then,  had  been  subdued,  and  Pu 
laski  lost  his  life  in  a  futile  attempt,  by  French  and 
Americans,  to  retake  Savannah.  Marion  and  Sumter 
alone  kept  the  flag  of  rebellion  flying  among  the 
palmettoes.  It  seemed  as  if  the  rebellion  was  to  be 
destroyed  from  the  edges,  and  not  by  cutting  it  into 
pieces.  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  quiet,  it  only 
remained  to  advance  into  North  Carolina  and  Vir 
ginia  to  arouse,  rally,  and  protect  the  Union  sentiment 
there,  just  as,  eighty  years  after,  Sherman  marched 
by  the  same  routes  to  extinguish  the  rebellion  and 
revive  the  Union  sentiment  among  the  grandsons  of 
the  people  who  had  known  Lord  Cornwallis  and 
Colonel  Banastre  Tarleton. 

The  anti-Washington  feeling  in  Congress,  the  sec 
tional  sentiment,  sought  this  occasion  to  mortify  him 
and  to  make  another  move  toward  displacing  him. 


242  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Gates,  with  the  Army  of  the  North,  had  captured  one 
British  army;  with  an  army  in  the  South  he  would 
capture  another,  and  then  there  would  be  no  doubt 
that  he  was  the  general  for  the  war,  the  destined 
saviour  of  the  liberties  of  the  continent,  and  all 
would  agree  that  he  was  the  Moses  selected  by 
Providence  to  lead  us  through  the  Red  Sea  of  re 
bellion,  and  to  command  the  army  on  its  march  to 
the  promised  land. 

As  in  the  assignment  of  Gates  to  the  command  at 
Albany,  Washington  did  not  agree  to  this  estimate 
by  the  Board  of  War  and  the  New  England  influence, 
nor  assent  to  his  being  intrusted  with  great  respon 
sible  command.  But  his  opinion  was  disregarded, 
and  General  Gates  was  sent  South  to  redeem  the 
Carolinas.  Charles  Lee,  who  knew  him  well — knew 
his  ignorance,  his  self-conceit,  his  weakness  of  will, 
his  intellectual  incapacity — sent  him  word,  by  a  mu 
tual  friend,  to  "take  heed  lest  his  Northern  laurels 
turn  to  Southern  willows." 

Gates  arrived  at  Hillsborough,  N.  C.,  July  19, 
1780,  where  he  found  the  Maryland  and  Delaware 
lines,  of  about  two  thousand  men,  under  Major 
General  the  Baron  de  Kalb,  who  while  on  the  march 
from  the  North  had  reached  that  point  on  June  2oth, 
when  the  news  of  Lincoln's  surrender  reached  them. 
De  Kalb  halted  until  he  could  secure  some  co-opera 
tion  from  Richard  Caswell,  Governor  of  North  Caro 
lina.  The  arrival  of  Gates,  with  orders  to  assume 
command  of  the  army  and  of  the  States,  relieved  De 
Kalb  of  responsibility,  and  he  calmly  awaited  orders. 
The  British  held  no  positions  in  North  Carolina  ex 
cept  a  depot  on  the  Cape  Fear,  the  present  city  of 
Wilmington.  They  held  Camden,  under  command  of 


THE  CAMPAIGN    IN   THE   SOUTH.  243 

Lord  Rawdon,  in  the  center  of  South  Carolina,  where 
roads  from  east,  west,  north,  and  south  converged, 
and  the  possession  of  Camden  would  cut  the  com 
munications  of  all  posts,  east,  west,  and  north,  with 
headquarters  at  Charleston.  Therefore  General 
Gates  proposed  the  brilliant  strategic  feat  of  the 
capture  of  Camden  before  Lord  Cornwallis  could 
reach  it  from  Charleston. 

He  moved  by  the  shortest  line,  and  arrived  at 
Camden  before  Cornwallis,  but  by  indecision  and 
delay  lost  his  advantage  and  opportunity,  for  Corn 
wallis  came  before  he  could  make  up  his  mind  to 
attack  Rawdon.  He  did  so  at  last  on  August  16, 
1780,  with  three  thousand  men,  of  whom  fourteen 
hundred  were  veterans  of  the  Maryland  line,  against 
two  thousand  regulars  under  Cornwallis,  and  in  a 
few  hours  was  utterly  routed,  dispersed,  destroyed. 
The  only  ray  of  light  on  that  black  field  is  the  chiv 
alry  of  the  First  Regiment  of  the  Maryland  line, 
which  by  repeated  and  reiterated  bayonet  charges 
stayed  the  onward  sweep  of  the  British  line,  and  the 
heroic  death  of  their  commander,  De  Kalb,  who  died 
on  the  field  from  many  wounds.  Gates  fled  igno- 
miniously,  and  never  drew  rein  until  he  reached 
Hillsborough,  two  hundred  miles  off,  in  four  days. 
Cornwallis  halted  a  month  at  Camden  before  he 
moved  north  into  North  Carolina. 

The  destruction  of  the  army  of  the  South,  the 
submission  of  Georgia,  the  conquest  of  South  Caro 
lina,  and  the  impending  subjugation  of  North  Caro 
lina,  threatened  the  most  tremendous  consequences. 
War  had  been  waged  for  five  years;  independence 
had  been  declared  four  years ;  the  alliance  with 
France  had  been  accomplished  two  years,  and  there 
17 


244  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

was  still  no  apparent  end  to  the  struggle.  Florida 
Blanca,  the  Spanish  Prime  Minister,  urged  Vergennes, 
the  French  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  to  make  peace 
between  the  revolted  colonies  and  their  home  Gov 
ernment  on  the  basis  of  the  retention  of  New  York 
and  Rhode  Island  by  the  latter,  and  the  acknowledg 
ment  of  the  independence  of  the  rest.  The  wily 
Spaniard  argued  that  such  a  settlement  would  leave 
the  English  Protestants  in  America  so  divided  that 
they  would  exhaust  themselves  and  the  mother 
country  in  internecine  fraternal  struggle,  and  leave 
the  dominion  of  the  sea  again  to  Spain,  as  it  had 
been  before  the  failure  of  the  Grand  Armada. 

The  Frenchman,  with  a  wider  view  and  farther 
sight,  believed  that  the  way  to  break  Great  Britain's 
supremacy  was  by  force,  not  diplomacy,  and  that  a 
great,  prosperous,  energetic,  aggressive,  Anglo-Nor 
man,  Scandinavian,  Celtic,  Gothic,  Saxon  race  in 
America  would  more  certainly  overcome  Great  Brit 
ain  by  the  arts  of  peace,  than  the  trite  device  of  un 
dermining  the  adversary  by  encouraging  internal 
broils  and  intestine  struggles.  Quarrels  may  be 
composed  and  strife  may  be  stilled,  but  power  pro 
duced  and  supported  by  industrial  development  will 
overcome  and  outlast  conditions  created  by  and  rest 
ing  on  cunning,  adroitness,  and  the  manifestations  of 
passions,  religious,  racial,  or  national. 

Therefore  the  French  statesman  elected  to  create 
a  great  power  on  the  Western  continent,  instead  of 
trying  to  involve  it  in  ruin.  The  French  alliance 
had  amounted  to  nothing  in  the  field.  It  supplied 
some  money  and  arms  and  munitions,  and  a  super 
abundance  of  military  adventurers  and  soldiers  of  for 
tune  like  Conway,  but  it  was  really  disadvantageous, 


THE  CAMPAIGN   IN   THE   SOUTH. 


245 


in  that  it  weakened  the  self-reliance  of  the  States, 
and  tended  to  turn  their  eyes  toward  France  for  suc 
cess,  instead  of  relying  on  their  own  hearts  and  arms 
alone.  The  finances  of  the  confederacy  were  abso 
lutely  nil.  There  was  no  courage,  no  brains,  no  ex 
perience  in  their  management. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  still  hung  on  be 
tween  the  States  unratified.  There  was  no  author 
ity  in  the  Congress.  It  could  not  enlist  a  man  or 
raise  a  dollar  by  taxation.  It  could  and  did  issue 
promises  to  pay,  and  flooded  the  country  with  cur 
rency  which  was  estimated  at  the  value  of  the  expec 
tation  it  represented.  Virginia  maintained  a  post  at 
Fort  Pitt,  the  former  Fort  Duquesne,  and  constructed 
a  chain  of  forts  from  the  head  waters  of  the  Ohio 
along  the  Alleghany  range  to  the  North  Carolina 
line,  while  she  claimed  the  county  of  Kentucky  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Kanawha  to  the  Mississippi,  and 
the  county  of  Illinois,  comprising  all  the  territory 
west  of  the  Ohio,  to  the  same  river. 

The  other  States  refused  to  accede  to  the  con 
federation  until  Virginia  agreed  that  these  territo 
ries  should  be  considered  the  common  property  of 
all  the  States.  She,  on  the  other  hand,  insisted  that, 
as  they  had  been  conquered  by  Virginian  arms  and 
paid  for  by  Virginian  blood  and  money,  they  be 
longed  to  her;  and  that  the  objections  to  her  title 
were  based  not  on  the  common  interest,  but  on  selfish 
considerations  to  save  the  speculative  rights  of  men 
prominent  in  the  States,  and  who  had  been  conspicu 
ous  in  the  colonial  governments — among  them  Lord 
Dunmore,  of  Virginia,  and  Governor  Tryon,  of  North 
Carolina  and  New  York.  With  this  wrangle  of  jar 
ring  interests,  the  general  depreciation  of  public 


246  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

morals,  always  accompanying  war,  with  a  fluctuating, 
uncertain  medium  of  exchange,  steadily  debauched 
the  public  virtue. 

Washington  was  more  concerned  with  the  social 
degeneration  than  even  the  gloomy  military  outlook. 
Speculators,  engrossers,  blockade  runners  overshad 
owed  society,  and  easy  and  rapid  gains  produced 
easier  and  more  rapid  expenditure,  until  the  luxury 
of  a  few  only  accentuated  the  sufferings  of  the  many, 
and  the  aspirations  of  all  were  rapidly  tending  to 
ward  the  accumulation  of  money  more  than  to  the 
acquisition  of  liberty.  He  wrote,  he  urged,  he  en 
treated  leading  men  of  the  States  to  apply  their 
whole  energies  toward  correcting  this  fast-growing 
corruption,  demonstrating  to  them  the  fact  that,  if 
it  could  not  be  cured,  there  would  be  nothing  left 
worth  contending  for. 

Looking  to  Virginia,  as  ever,  for  support  and  ex 
ample,  he  impressed  George  Mason  with  the  sense 
of  the  immense  danger,  and  urged  him  to  rouse  the 
General  Assembly  to  action.  He  knew  nothing  of 
the  intrigue  of  the  Spaniards  for  peace  with  a  divided 
continent,  but  his  phenomenal  political  sagacity 
warned  him  of  the  danger  ;  and  while  Florida  Blanca 
was  writing  to  Vergennes  to  secure  peace,  he  was 
writing  to  Mason  that  the  highest  duty  and  most 
pressing  necessity  was  the  continuance  of  the  war. 
To  the  General  Assembly  he  set  forth  at  length, 
through  a  letter  to  Mason,  the  actual  conditions,  and 
demonstrated  that  peace  now  could  only  result  in 
untold  disaster,  and  that  their  only  safety  lay  in 
vigorous  preparation  for,  and  defense  against,  Corn- 
wallis's  invasion,  now  impending. 

Thomas  Jefferson  had  become  Governor,  and  the 


THE   CAMPAIGN   IN   THE   SOUTH.  247 

State,  aroused,  proceeded  to  put  herself  in  position 
for  what  fortune  might  send.  One  difficulty  about 
the  French  alliance  had  been  that  the  troops  and 
fleets  sent  were  allies,  and  not  part  of  the  mili 
tary  and  naval  force  of  the  confederacy.  The 
French  commanders  co-operated  in  good  faith,  it  is 
true,  in  the  strategy  of  the  American  commander  in 
chief,  but  they  took  no  orders  from  him.  In  Febru 
ary,  1779,  Washington  sent  Lafayette  to  France, 
ostensibly  to  see  his  family,  but  really  to  secure 
from  the  ministry  the  detachment  of  a  substantial 
body  of  trained  troops  to  report  to  Washington,  and 
to  form  part  of  his  command.  In  April  he  returned, 
and  informed  Washington  that  France  would  soon 
send  the  desired  re-enforcement. 

On  July  loth  the  French  fleet  arrived  at  Newport 
with  five  thousand  veteran  soldiers,  the  flite  of  the 
armies  of  his  Most  Christian  Majesty,  under  com 
mand  of  General  the  Count  de  Rochambeau.  The 
fleet  consisted  of  eight  ships  of  the  line,  two  frigates, 
and  two  bombs.  As  soon  as  Sir  Henry  heard  of  this 
arrival  he  moved  an  army  against  it.  Embarking  a 
large  force  on  his  fleet  and  transports  in  New  York 
harbor,  on  July  3ist  he  sailed  up  the  Sound  east 
ward.  Without  a  moment's  hesitation  Washington 
headed  everything  he  had  on  foot,  on  horse,  and  on 
wheels  for  Kingsbridge,  intending  to  "  swap  queens" 
with  the  British  general  and  capture  New  York 
while  he  was  struggling  with  Rochambeau  at  New 
port.  This  countermove  promptly  recalled  the  ex 
pedition  eastward,  and  by  August  4th  it  was  safely 
back  in  New  York. 

On  September  2ist  Washington  had  an  interview 
with  De  Rochambeau,  at  Hartford,  Conn.  The  com- 


248  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

mander  in  chief  was  attended  with  more  state  and 
ceremony  than  the  French  marquis  general.  M.  de 
Rochambeau  was  accompanied  by  six  officers — the 
admiral,  his  chief  of  engineers,  his  son  the  Viscomte 
de  Rochambeau,  and  two  aids-de-camp,  of  whom 
Count  de  Fersen  was  one.  Washington  had  with 
him  Major  General  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette,  Gen 
eral  Knox,  Chief  of  Artillery,  M.  de  Gouvion,  Chief 
of  Engineers,  and  six  aids-de-camp,  and  an  escort  of 
twenty-two  dragoons. 

Says  the  Count  de  Fersen,  in  his  diary  written 
that  very  day :  "  M.  de  Rochambeau  sent  me  in  ad 
vance  to  announce  his  arrival,  and  I  had  time  to  see 
this  man,  illustrious  if  not  unique  in  this  century. 
He  is  handsome  and  majestic,  while  at  the  same  time 
his  mild  and  open  countenance  perfectly  reflects  his 
moral  qualities;  he  looks  the  hero  ;  he  is  very  cold; 
speaks  little,  but  is  courteous  and  frank.  A  shade 
of  sadness  overshadows  his  countenance,  which  is 
not  unbecoming,  and  gives  him  an  interesting  air." 

This  pen  picture  by  the  bright  young  Frenchman 
accurately  portrays  the  appearance  and  describes 
the  manners  of  a  Virginian  gentleman  of  the  epoch, 
of  estate,  reputation,  and  weight  in  his  province. 
Gravity,  decorum,  stately  deportment,  were  charac 
teristic  of  that  society,  and  the  description  would 
have  done  as  well  for  George  Mason,  of  Gunston 
Hall,  or  Colonel  Thomas  Ludwell  Lee,  of  Berry 
Hill,  or  Daniel  Carroll  Brent,  of  Richlands,  or 
Thomas  Fitzhugh,  of  Boscobel,  or  William  Fitzhugh, 
of  Ravensworth,  or  Colonel  McCarty,  of  Marmion,  or 
many  more  of  his  kinsmen  and  friends  on  both  sides 
of  the  Potomac.  Washington  was  no  phenomenon 
of  deportment,  but  was  the  type  of  his  class — the 


THE   CAMPAIGN    IN   THE   SOUTH.  249 

very  highest  and  best  type  of  the  Virginian  country 
gentleman  of  his  period. 

The  conference  established  perfectly  cordial  re 
lations  between  the  two  commanders,  but  nothing 
was  determined  except  the  general  strategy  of  their 
operations :  to  keep  Sir  Henry  Clinton  from  re- 
enforcing  Cornwallis  by  constant  threats  against 
him  in  New  York,  and  to  isolate  Cornwallis  within 
reach  of  the  Northern  Army,  cut  him  off  from  the 
sea  by  the  French  fleet,  and  capture  his  whole  force. 
To  this  end  it  was  agreed  to  re-enforce  the  naval 
power  by  an  addition  to  the  fleet  from  that  of  the 
Count  de  Guichen  in  the  West  Indies.  Washington 
sent  to  him  a  request  for  ships  of  the  line,  and  De 
Ternay  sent  him  an  order  to  re-enforce  the  fleet  in 
Newport  harbor ;  but  De  Guichen  sailed  for  France. 
A  second  division  of  French  war  ships  and  troops 
was  prepared  for  America,  but  they  were  blockaded 
in  the  harbor  of  Brest,  as  Admiral  de  Ternay  was 
in  that  of  Newport  by  a  superior  British  force,  and 
never  succeeded  in  getting  out. 

De  Rochambeau  marched  his  army  across  Con 
necticut  and  joined  Washington,  and  then  they 
threatened  Sir  Henry  Clinton.  In  the  meantime  the 
steady  insults  by  Congress  had  forced  Morgan  and 
Greene  out  of  the  service,  as  it  was  hoped  would  be 
the  case  with  Washington.  But  Gates's  disaster  at 
Camden  required  a  new  arrangement,  and  in  great 
trouble  the  Congress  appealed  to  the  commander  in 
chief  for  a  commander  for  the  Southern  army.  He 
selected  Greene.  The  rank  of  major  general  was 
conferred  on  him,  and  he  took  command  at  Char 
lotte,  N.  C.,  of  the  fragments  of  Continentals  that 
Gates  had  left  and  the  militia  that  Caswell  was  able 


250 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


to  embody.  With  General  Greene  he  sent  his  corps 
d'elite,  the  legion  of  Henry  Lee,  made  lieutenant  col 
onel  for  his  brilliant  surprise  of  Paulus  Hook,  and 
Kosciusko  as  engineer. 

He  appealed  to  Morgan,  who  promptly  reported 
to  Greene,  and  Congress  tardily  righted  the  wrong 
by  conferring  on  him  the  appropriate  rank.  With 
Greene  in  the  saddle  in  North  Carolina,  Washington 
knew  that  that  part  of  the  movement  would  be  prop 
erly  executed.  He  was  to  draw  Cornwallis  North. 
Steuben  was  sent  to  Virginia  to  keep  Greene's  com 
munications  open  with  the  army,  and  Lafayette  was 
directed  to  take  command  of  such  Virginia  militia 
as  Governor  Jefferson  could  raise  for  him,  and  to 
hang  around  Cornwallis  as  soon  as  he  entered  the 
State,  keep  him  employed  by  constant  threats,  and 
worry  him  out  of  the  open  country  back  to  tide  wa 
ter.  Greene  fell  back  through  North  Carolina  with 
Cornwallis  hot  on  his  track,  until  at  last  he  gave  him 
battle  at  Guilford  Court-House,  for  the  purpose  of 
crippling  him  and  keeping  him  near  the  water.  After 
the  battle  of  Guilford,  Cornwallis  fell  back  to  his 
base  on  the  Cape  Fear,  and  then  marched  on  Sher 
man's  projected  route  of  eighty  years  after,  through 
the  eastern  part  of  the  State  to  Petersburg,  Va. 
There  he  was  confronted  with  Lafayette,  the  ma 
jor  general  of  twenty-three  years,  who  refused  to 
fight,  and  who  constantly  eluded  him.  He  crossed 
the  James  River  to  Malvern  Hill,  where  McClellan 
fought  in  1862,  turned  up  the  Pamunkey,  following 
the  Frenchman ;  by  Hanover  Town,  where  Grant 
crossed  in  1864,  and  forced  Lafayette  across  the 
North  Anna,  where  Grant  fought  in  1864,  back  to 
Ely's  Ford  on  the  Rappahannock,  by  a  road  which 


ROUTE     OF     THE     ALLIES, 
AUGUST-SEPTEMBER,   1781, 

FROM    THE    HUDSON    TO   YORKTOWN. 


PENNSY          VAN         A 


THE   CAMPAIGN    IN    THE   SOUTH.  251 

he  cut  through  the  country,  known  as  "  Marcus 
Road,"  or  the  Marquis's  Road,  to  this  day. 

Thence  Cornwallis  dispatched  Tarleton  on  a  raid 
to  Charlottesville  where  Governor  Jefferson  and  the 
Virginia  Legislature  were  assembled,  and  Lafayette 
moved  up  the  river,  and  about  Warrenton  joined 
Wayne,  who  with  one  thousand  Continentals  was 
moving  South  to  support  him.  With  Wayne's  re- 
enforcemerit  he  cut  Tarleton  off  from  his  command, 
and  drove  him  to  the  Point  of  Fork,  in  Fluvanna 
County,  on  the  upper  James,  sixty  miles  above  Rich 
mond.  From  the  North  Anna  Cornwallis  was  obliged 
to  march  sixty  or  seventy  miles  west,  three  days' 
march,  to  rescue  his  dashing  raider,  who  had  become 
enveloped  in  the  toils  set  for  him  by  the  French  gen 
eral  and  his  Virginians.  As  soon  as  his  troops  were 
reunited  the  British  general  marched  down  the  north 
or  left  bank  of  the  James  by  Richmond,  across  the 
Chickahominy,  to  York  River.  He  was  closely  fol 
lowed  up  by  Lafayette. 

In  the  meantime  Washington  had  been  pressing 
De  Grasse,  who  commanded  a  great  French  fleet  in 
the  West  Indies  for  the  conquest  of  Jamaica,  to 
unite  with  De  Rochambeau  and  himself  in  a  com 
bined  land  and  water  attack  on  Sir  Henry  Clinton  in 
New  York,  or  on  Cornwallis  in  Virginia.  It  was  not 
until  the  summer  that  he  had  a  definite  reply  from 
De  Grasse  that  he  elected  to  take  the  Chesapeake  as 
the  scene  of  his  operations.  The  area  was  large  and 
the  water  deep,  and  the  bay  suited  the  great  vessels 
of  his  command  better  than  the  bar  and  contracted 
waters  of  New  York  harbor. 

Sending  Lafayette  orders  to  hold  Cornwallis  until 
he  got  up,  he  set  to  work  to  persuade  his  own  army 


252 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


and  Sir  Henry  Clinton  that  he  intended  to  attack  the 
latter  in  New  York.  De  Grasse's  fleet  consisted  of 
twenty-eight  ships  of  the  line  and  six  frigates,  carry 
ing  seventeen  hundred  guns  and  twenty  thousand 
men.  The  presence  of  such  a  force  would  deprive 
the  English  of  the  command  of  the  sea,  cut  them  off 
from  their  base,  and  isolate  Clinton  or  Cornwallis, 
whichever  it  was  directed  against.  De  Grasse  de 
cided  against  whom  the  operation  should  be  directed 
by  selecting  the  Chesapeake. 

On  August  19,  1781,  five  days  after  receiving  De 
Grasse's  dispatch,  Washington's  army  crossed  the 
Hudson.  He  left  Lord  Stirling  with  a  small  force 
to  watch  the  gate  from  Canada  at  Saratoga,  and  Gen 
eral  Heath  with  four  thousand  Continentals  to  hold 
West  Point.  His  army  consisted  of  two  thousand 
Continentals,  composed  of  two  regiments  of  New 
Jersey,  the  First  Regiment  of  New  York,  Colonel 
Hazen's  Canadian  regiment,  Colonel  Olney's  regi 
ment  of  Rhode  Island,  Colonel  Lamb's  regiment  of 
artillery  and  the  light  troops  under  command  of 
Colonel  Scammel,  and  four  thousand  French  troops 
under  General  de  Rochambeau.  "  The  Rhode  Island 
regiment,  among  others,  is  extremely  fine,"  writes  a 
French  officer,  the  Baron  Cromot  du  Bourg,  at  the 
time. 

The  French  contingent  contained  the  Regiments 
Bourbonnais,  Deux  Fonts  and  Saintonge,  Soisonnois, 
and  other  corps  d' elite  of  the  army  of  France.  It  was 
the  only  time  that  Continentals  ever  marched  with 
French.  They  were  afterward  to  be  brought  close 
together  in  the  comradeship  of  arms  and  the  noble 
rivalry  of  battle  in  the  trenches  and  before  the  re 
doubts  at  Yorktown.  The  route  was  through  New 


THE   CAMPAIGN    IN    THE   SOUTH.  253 

Jersey,  and  not  until  New  Brunswick  was  passed  did 
even  the  general  officers  dream  that  any  other  enter 
prise  was  in  execution  than  the  attack  on  New  York. 
So  closely  had  the  secret  been  kept  between  Wash 
ington  and  De  Rochambeau,  that  not  until  the  army 
passed  through  Philadelphia,  September  3d  to  5th, 
did  Sir  Henry  Clinton  divine  the  object  of  the  move 
ment — that  it  was  not  against  him,  but  was  a  concen 
tration  on  the  interior  lines  on  the  army  in  Virginia. 
Just  below  Philadelphia  Washington  received  a  dis 
patch  by  courier  that  De  Grasse  had  arrived  in  the  bay, 
and  the  news  was  communicated  to  the  column.  The 
tidings  strung  them  up  to  the  highest  pitch  of  enthu 
siasm,  and  they  swung  along  with  the  free  stride  and 
square-set  shoulders  that  marches  and  bivouac  and 
battle  for  six  years  had  given  them.  Their  uniforms 
were  ragged,  but  their  bayonets  were  bright ;  their 
shoes  were  tattered,  but  their  hearts  were  light ;  and 
no  hunger,  no  fatigue,  no  labor  could  depress  the  men 
marching  to  the  fulfillment  of  their  dream  of  six 
years — liberty  and  independence,  glory  and  peace ! 
The  French,  natty,  clean,  precise,  followed,  much 
pondering  at  the  power  which  could  give  such  look 
ing  men  such  spirits.  They  were  reviewed  by  the 
Congress  and  the  French  minister  as  they  passed 
down  Chestnut  Street  by  the  State  House. 

On  September  yth  the  head  of  the  allied  army 
reached  the  "  Head  of  Elk,"  and  was  pushed  on  board 
the  bay  craft  there  collected  for  its  transportation  to 
the  James.  Washington,  with  his  staff,  rode  rapidly 
through  the  country,  passing  through  Baltimore  on 
the  8th,  to  Mount  Vernon  on  the  Qth,  where  he  was 
joined  by  De  Rochambeau  on  the  loth,  and  where 
he  stayed  until  the  i2th.  Thence  they  rode  by  Fred- 


254'  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

ericksburg  and  New  Castle  to  Williamsburg,  which 
place  they  reached  on  the  i4th,  to  Lafayette's  infinite 
relief.  They  rode  fifty  miles  a  day. 

As  soon  as  De  Grasse  opened  communications 
with  the  latter,  he  gave  him  three  thousand  French 
infantry,  which  made  his  position  before  Cornwallis 
perfectly  secure.  The  transports  with  the  troops  pro 
ceeded  down  the  bay,  past  York  River  and  Old  Point 
Comfort  and  turned  up  the  James  to  Williamsburg, 
where  the  army  debarked.  Admiral  de  Barras,  hav 
ing  escaped  Graves's  blockade  at  Newport,  joined 
the  Count  de  Grasse  with  his  ships  and  transports, 
and  the  latter  having  been  sent  to  Baltimore  for  the 
remainder  of  the  French  army,  which  had  marched 
there  from  the  Head  of  Elk,  arrived  at  Williamsburg 
on  the  28th,  and  the  whole  army  was  assembled. 

The  investment  of  Cornwallis  was  begun  at  once, 
and  completed  by  the  3oth — the  Americans  on  the 
right,  the  French  on  the  left,  under  the  Marquis  St. 
Simon  and  the  Viscount  de  Viomenil.  Cornwallis 
having  seized  and  fortified  Gloucester  Point,  on  the 
opposite  side  of  York  River,  the  Americans  and 
French  under  Generals  de  Choise  and  Weedon  and 
the  Duke  de  Lauzun  blockaded  him  there.  Admiral 
Graves  followed  De  Barras  from  Newport  and  at 
tempted  to  force  the  entry  to  the  Chesapeake,  but 
the  overwhelming  force  of  De  Grasse  met  him  at  the 
Capes,  and  after  a  severe  engagement  drove  him  off. 

Thus  the  grand  movement  which  Washington  had 
prepared  for  the  last  year  was  accomplished.  He 
had  left  Sir  Henry  Clinton  in  New  York.  He  had 
precipitated  on  Cornwallis,  in  Virginia,  an  over 
whelming  military  force,  while  the  enormous  naval 
preponderance  of  his  allies  gave  him  absolute  con- 


THE   CAMPAIGN   IN   THE   SOUTH. 


255 


trol  of  the  sea.  Clinton  might  evacuate  New  York 
and  come  with  Graves  to  Cornwallis's  deliverance. 
But  then  Heath  would  occupy  the  strategic  center  of 
the  war,  and  De  Grasse  would  prevent  the  junction 
of  the  two  British  armies.  Even  if  he  succeeded  in 
getting  into  York  and  uniting  with  Cornwallis,  he 
would  have  abandoned  the  struggle,  given  up  all  the 
territory  won  by  six  years  of  war,  and  risk  all  in  a 
final  trial  with  the  allies  when  their  combinations 
rendered  his  destruction  more  than  probable.  The 
move  was  a  perfect  checkmate. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

YORKTOWN — CARRYING  THE  NEWS  TO  CONGRESS. 

THE  army  of  Cornwallis  consisted  of  seven  thou 
sand  British  regulars.  That  of  the  allies  was  com 
posed  of  fifty-five  hundred  Continentals,  good  troops, 
seasoned  by  marches,  battles,  and  campaigns  ;  thirty- 
five  hundred  Virginia  militia,  who  for  the  preceding 
year  had  been  thwarting  Cornwallis  up  and  down  the 
James,  the  Pamunkey,  and  the  Rappahannock,  under 
Lafayette,  and  were  now  under  command  of  Thomas 
Nelson,  Governor  of  Virginia;  and  seven  thousand 
French,  as  fine  troops  as  ever  fought  under  the  lilies. 
Washington  began  his  investment  in  the  regular  way. 
He  drove  in  Cornwallis's  outposts,  forced  the  evacu 
ation  of  his  advanced  works,  and  opened  parallels 
against  his  heavy  fortifications  around  his  position 
on  deep  water.  The  first  parallel  was  opened  Octo 
ber  6th,  at  six  hundred  yards  from  the  British  works ; 
the  second,  on  the  nth,  at  three  hundred  yards. 
Two  redoubts,  advanced  from  the  British  line,  seri 
ously  incommoded  the  working  parties  of  the  attack 
ing  force,  and  it  became  necessary  to  silence  them. 

Hamilton,  on  the  general  staff,  was  commanding 
a  light  battalion  under  Lafayette.  The  reduction  of 
the  left  redoubt  (the  American  right)  was  intrusted 
to  Lafayette  and  the  Americans ;  of  the  right,  to  the 


YORKTOWN. 


257 


French.  The  regiment  Gatinais  was  to  lead  the 
French  storming  party.  It  had  been  formed  from 
that  of  D'Auvergne,  of  which  De  Rochambeau  had 
been  colonel,  and  was  known  as  "D'Auvergne  sans 
tache"  In  the  detail  for  the  attack  Lafayette  gave 
the  right  to  Major  Gimat,  of  his  staff,  with  the 
Rhode  Islanders. 

Hamilton  promptly  claimed  the  command  of  the 
storming  party,  as  it  was  his  tour  of  duty  on  the 
lines  as  officer  of  the  day;  and  Lafayette  declining 
to  change  the  arrangement,  Hamilton  appealed  to 
the  commander  in  chief.  It  appearing  that  Hamil 
ton  was  on  duty  at  the  time,  he  was  within  his  right 
in  his  claim  to  lead  the  advance,  and  it  was  awarded 
him.  Gimat's  regiment  was  given  the  right  of  the^s*^* 
line,  with  Hamilton's  battalion  of  light  infantry  in 
support,  Hamilton  in  command  of  the  whole.  The 
Baron  de  Viomenil  was  to  lead  the  French  column 
of  assault  against  the  enemy. 

These  preparations — the  riding  of  staff  officers 
hither  and  thither,  the  relieving  of  pickets  and  the 
calling  off  of  sentries,  and  that  tense  excitement  in 
bodies  of  men  which  is  felt,  not  seen — had  been  go 
ing  on  all  the  afternoon  of  the  i4th.  De  Rocham 
beau  had  ridden  over  to  the  grenadiers  of  D'Auvergne 
and  had  inspected  them.  Washington  had  ridden 
down  to  the  Rhode  Islanders  and  complimented 
their  trig  uniforms  and  the  polish  of  their  bayonets, 
and  the  general  staff  had  collected  itself  toward  the 
right  of  the  American  lines,  on  the  earthworks  of  a 
battery,  in  plain  view  of  the  enemy.  All  these 
movements  going  on  for  hours,  in  sight,  only  meant 
one  thing  to  old  soldiers — an  assault  would  be  made 
that  night  somewhere,  almost  certainly  on  the  two 


258  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

commanding  and  advanced  redoubts.  After  sunset 
the  American  and  French  works  became  lined  with 
soldiers  without  arms.  The  unusual  spectacle 
brought  out  the  British,  and  thus  both  armies  were 
drawn  to  witness  the  stirring  spectacle  of  an  assault 
on  fortifications.  Washington  dismounted,  sent  his 
horse  to  the  rear,  and  took  his  place  on  a  parapet 
with  Knox  and  Lincoln  and  their  staffs. 

They  could  see  Hamilton  moving  along  his  line 
as  they  lay  flat  on  the  ground,  and  could  feel  in  his 
alert,  vigorous  air,  that  he  was  saying,  "  Look  out, 
boys !  this  is  an  affair  of  cold  steel.  Not  a  gun  is  to 
be  fired,  and  I  want  to  see  the  man  who  will  beat  me 
into  that  work."  On  the  French  side  there  was  not 
so  much  life.  De  Viomenil  was  standing,  in  faultless 
uniform  and  perfect  gloves,  a  little  to  the  right  of  his 
regiment,  formed  in  a  column  of  companies,  with  a 
section  of  pioneers  armed  with  axes  on  the  right. 
Hamilton,  never  having  seen  an  assault,  supposed 
that  axes  were  the  proper  thing,  so  he  scraped  to 
gether  a  dozen  and  gave  them  to  some  of  his  men, 
with  instructions  to  rush  ahead  and  cut  those  fallen 
trees  out  of  the  way,  and  so  make  room  for  him. 

The  sun  set,  and  the  shades  of  that  October  even 
ing  spread  over  the  panorama  until,  about  eight 
o'clock,  one  single  rocket  sprang  into  the  air,  and  at 
the  moment  Hamilton  could  be  seen  with  his  sword 
flashing  round  his  head  as  he  gave  the  order,  "  Up, 
and  forward  !  "  Forward  they  went  with  a  rush  to 
the  abattis,  and  the  axemen  started  to  cut  their  way 
through;  but  Hamilton,  jumping  from  tree-trunk  to 
tree-trunk,  was  ten  yards  ahead.  The  regiment 
broke  forward  and  followed  their  leader.  At  the 
bastion  the  slope  was  too  steep,  and  he  slipped  back  ; 


YORKTOWN.  259 

but  one  of  the  men  stooped,  so  that  he  put  his  foot 
on  his  shoulder,  and  he  was  thus  "  boosted  "  into  the 
work — the  first  man  there ;  but  Gimat  and  the  Rhode 
Islanders  and  the  light  infantry  came  piling  in,  one 
over  the  other,  and  the  thing  was  done  in  a  breath. 
He  did  it  with  empty  guns  and  by  the  bayonet  alone. 
Not  a  shot  was  fired.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Laurens, 
another  aid  to  the  commander  in  chief,  with  eighty 
men,  at  the  same  time  took  the  redoubt  in  reverse, 
so  as  to  prevent  the  escape  of  any  of  the  detachment 
defending  it. 

It  was  too  dark  to  see  all  this  from  the  point 
where  the  generals  were  standing.  They  could  hear 
the  British  fire  and  see  the  flash  of  their  guns,  but 
could  not  tell  on  which  side  victory  was  until  an  ear- 
piercing  yell  went  up  from  the  inside  of  the  work. 
"  That's  Hamilton  !  "  said  one  of  the  generals  to  the 
other.  But  the  firing  about  the  French  party  con 
tinued.  They  were  halted,  being  regular  soldiers 
and  well  drilled,  until  their  pioneers  had  cut  away 
the  obstructions;  and  while  the  pioneers  were  cut 
ting  abattis  the  British  were  shooting  Frenchmen. 

The  instant  Hamilton  was  comfortably  fixed  and 
had  his  prisoners  disarmed,  he  started  a  young  lieuten 
ant  to  the  Baron  de  Viomenil :  "  Colonel  Hamilton's 
compliments  to  the  Baron  de  Viomenil,  and  begs  to 
inform  him  that  he  is  inside,  and  to  inquire  if  he  can 
be  of  any  assistance  to  the  baron."  To  which  the 
Frenchman  sent  back  word  in  the  same  gay  spirit : 
"  The  Baron  de  Viomenil's  compliments  to  Colonel 
Hamilton,  and  he  begs  to  say  that,  though  he  is  not 
in  yet,  he  will  be  in  two  minutes,  and  will  stay  when 
he  gets  in.  He  thanks  the  colonel  for  his  courtesy, 
but  does  not  require  help."  In  a  moment  the  French 
IS 


26o  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

win  the  parapet ;  there  are  a  few  musket  flashes  in 
the  gloom,  and  then  there  is  silence  that  tells  the 
story  of  the  bayonet,  and  then  a  cheer.  The  thing 
was  done.  The  last  move  of  the  last  piece  in  the 
great  game  that  had  been  begun  at  Newport,  Hart 
ford,  and  Dobb's  Ferry  in  the  North,  and  at  Char 
lotte  and  Camden  in  the  South,  more  than  a  year 
before,  was  made,  and  the  game  was  won. 

Washington,  impassible,  grave,  stern,  with  no  sign 
of  the  tremendous  pressure  under  which  he  was 
laboring,  except  a  flash  of  the  eye,  turned  to  the 
attendant  generals,  and  said  :  "  Gentlemen,  the  work 
is  done,  and  well  done !  Let  us  ride !  William, 
bring  me  my  horse !  "  and  they  all  rode  off  into  the 
black  night,  deeply  impressed  with  the  immense 
importance  of  the  events  that  had  just  taken  place. 

As  long  as  De  Grasse  held  York  River  the  result 
was  mathematically  certain.  The  only  doubt  resulted 
from  the  Gallic  temperament,  and  the  possibility  of 
another  attack  on  him  by  Rodney  from  the  West 
Indies  and  Graves  from  the  Atlantic  station.  Wash 
ington  knew  that  in  such  a  contingency  it  would  be 
impossible  to  control  the  French  appetite  for  glory, 
and  he  was  reasonably  anxious  on  that  score.  This 
doubt  solved,  the  capture  of  the  redoubts  meant  the 
speedy,  prompt  capitulation  of  Lord  Cornwallis.  The 
next  day  Cornwallis  attempted  to  re-establish  himself 
in  the  position  from  which  he  had  been  expelled,  but 
was  easily  repulsed.  The  redoubts  were  included  on 
the  second  American  parallel,  and  howitzers  securely 
mounted  on  them. 

Sir  Henry  Clinton  made  no  sign.  Cornwallis  pro 
posed  to  cross  the  river  to  Gloucester  Point  and  force 
his  way  north  to  rejoin  Clinton.  It  was  an  utterly 


YORKTOWN.  26l 

impracticable,  foolhardy  scheme,  and  not  even  des 
peration  could  justify  it.  But  a  sudden  storm  frus 
trated  even  that;  and  on  the  lyth  he  hoisted  a 
white  flag,  his  drums  beat  a  parley,  and  he  sent  out 
an  officer  with  a  proposition  for  an  armistice  of 
twenty-four  hours,  while  commissioners  from  each 
army  could  settle  the  terms  of  the  surrender  of  the 
posts  of  York  and  Gloucester.  Not  knowing  what 
might  happen  on  the  bay  in  that  time,  Washington 
gave  him  but  two  hours'  time  in  which  to  send  in  his 
proposition. 

Those  sent  by  Lord  Cornwallis  were  not  satisfac 
tory,  so  the  Viscount  de  Noailles  and  Lieutenant-Colo 
nel  John  Laurens,  commissioners  for  the  allies,  met 
Colonel  Dundas  and  Major  Ross,  on  the  part  of  the 
British,  to  arrange  terms.  The  whole  of  the  i8th  was 
spent  in  discussion,  and  on  the  iQth  a  draft  of  terms 
of  capitulation  was  submitted  to  the  British  officers. 
"  Are  not  those  terms  somewhat  harsh,  colonel  ? "  said 
Dundas  to  Laurens.  "  They  are  copies  of  those 
granted  to  General  Lincoln  by  the  marquis  at 
Charleston,"  said  Laurens.  They  were  transmitted 
to  Lord  Cornwallis  with  a  note  from  General  Wash 
ington,  informing  him  that  he  expected  them  to  be 
signed  by  eleven  o'clock  that  day,  and  that  the  gar 
rison  would  march  out  and  ground  arms  at  2  p.  M. 
They  were  signed,  and  the  posts  of  York  and 
Gloucester,  with  their  garrisons,  arms,  ordnance,  and 
supplies,  were  surrendered  to  General  Washington, 
and,  the  ships,  transports,  and  naval  supplies  to  the 
Count  de  Grasse,  as  commander  of  the  French  fleet. 

At  two  o'clock  the  British  army  marched  out 
along  a  road  on  which  the  Americans  were  formed 
on  the  right  and  the  French  on  the  left,  facing  in- 


262  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

ward — Washington  and  staff  on  the  right  of  his 
own  line,  De  Rochambeau  and  staff  on  the  right  of 
his,  facing  Washington.  They  marched  with  shoul 
dered  arms,  colors  cased,  and  their  drums  beating  a 
march.  The  terms  of  surrender  required  that  they 
should  beat  a  British  march,  so  they  selected  as  the 
one  for  the  occasion  one  called  "  The  world  turned 
upside  down."  Cornwallis,  unworthy  of  his  char 
acter  and  unfortunately  for  his  fame,  was  unable  to 
face  the  inevitable,  and  sent  General  O'Hara  to  rep 
resent  him  in  the  mortifying  ceremony.  Superbly 
mounted  and  perfectly  equipped,  O'Hara,  when  he 
reached  the  end  of  the  line,  turned  his  horse  out  to 
General  Washington,  to  whom  he  tendered  his  sword, 
with  "  Lord  Cornwallis's  excuses  and  regrets  that  in 
disposition  compelled  his  absence  on  so  interesting 
an  occasion."  Cornwallis  had  received  Lincoln's 
sword  at  Charleston  on  precisely  the  same  terms  he 
was  now  being  forced  to  comply  with ;  and  General 
Washington,  bowing  to  General  O'Hara,  directed  him 
to  General  Lincoln,  to  whom  he  was  to  deliver  his 
sword  and  to  surrender,  and  whose  directions  he  was 
to  obey.  So  Lincoln,  marched  the  British  column 
out  into  the  open  field,  where  they  grounded  their 
arms  in  sulks  and  temper. 

The  surrender  was  over  by  four  o'clock,  and  the 
news  must  at  once  be  sent  to  the  Congress.  Who 
should  have  that  honor  ?  On  the  brilliant  staff  of 
the  commander  in  chief,  besides  Hamilton  and  Lau- 
rens,  was  Tench  Tilghman,  of  Maryland.  He  was  of 
that  family  which  in  England  had  made  its  mark  by 
intellectual  vigor,  and  in  the  provinces  of  Pennsyl 
vania  and  Maryland  filled  the  first  place  in  the  revolt 
against  the  mother  country.  He  was  from  the  east- 


YORKTOWN.  263 

ern  shore  of  Maryland,  and  from  the  County  of  Talbot, 
which  for  eight  generations  has  been  the  center  of  a 
noble  culture  and  a  generous  chivalry.  His  uncle 
had  been  President  of  the  Revolutionary  Convention 
of  Maryland,  and  every  man  of  the  breed  able  to 
ride  a  horse  was  in  arms  for  his  country. 

Hamilton  and  Laurens  had  had  their  chance  in 
the  assault  on  the  redoubt  and  the  negotiations  for 
the  surrender  ;  so  fairness  required  that  Tilghman 
should  have  the  honor  of  bearing  the  news  of 
victory  to  Congress.  By  six  o'clock  on  the  evening 
of  the  ipth,  with  his  dispatches  in  his  breast  pocket, 
he  had  his  horse  on  an  open  sailboat,  flying  down 
the  York  River.  Out  in  the  open  bay  he  turned 
his  bows  north,  but  lost  a  whole  night  aground 
on  Tangier  shoals,  on  account  of  the  ignorance  of 
his  boatmen.  Reaching  Annapolis,  he  found  that  a 
dispatch,  dated  the  i8th,  from  De  Grasse  to  Governor 
Thomas  Sim  Lee,  had  preceded  him  by  a  day,  so  he 
turned  at  once  with  his  horse  and  boat  across  the 
bay  toward  Philadelphia.  He  lost  a  day  in  a  calm 
between  Annapolis  and  Rock  Hall,  in  the  County  of 
Kent.  From  there  to  Philadelphia  is  about  eighty 
miles  as  the  crow  flies.  De  Grasse's  courier  had 
passed  through  the  country  the  day  before.  The 
people  were  on  tiptoe  to  hear  the  news  from  York. 
Their  hearts  stopped  as  they  imagined  they  heard 
the  great  guns  of  the  English  and  the  French  boom 
ing  over  the  waters  in  the  still  night.  Mothers,  wives, 
sisters,  daughters,  and  sweethearts  all  looked  with 
wistful  eyes  to  the  South  for  some  sign  of  the  issue 
of  the  weary  struggle. 

It  was  the  supreme  effort  of  American  liberty. 
It  was  the  very  crisis  of  freedom.  But  the  flower  of 


264  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

Maryland  was  in  that  fight,  and  the  lower  counties 
on  the  Delaware  had  sent  their  bravest  and  best  to 
back  their  brethren  of  the  eastern  shore.  One  of  the 
miracles  of  history,  attested  time  and  again  by  indis 
putable  evidence,  is  that  when  the  minds  and  hearts 
of  a  whole  people  are  at  a  white  heat  of  excitement 
and  expectation,  knowledge  comes  to  them  independ 
ent  of  the  senses.  The  Greeks  believed  that  the 
great  god  Pan  spread  the  knowledge  of  victory  or 
defeat  at  the  time  of  their  occurrence,  hundreds  of 
miles  away.  The  result  of  the  battle  of  Plataea  was 
known  the  day  it  was  fought,  and  the  news  of  Ther 
mopylae  spread  over  Greece  through  the  silent  cham 
bers  of  the  air  carried  by  the  arrows  of  light.  The 
victory  of  Pharsalia  was  known  in  Rome  at  the  time 
it  occurred,  and  the  events  of  Waterloo  were  dis 
cussed  on  the  London  Stock  Exchange  before  it  ad 
journed  on  the  afternoon  of  June  i8th. 

So  when  Tench  Tilghman  landed  at  Rock  Hall, 
for  his  hundred  miles'  ride  through  the  country,  he 
found  the  hearts  and  minds  of  men  and  women 
aglow  with  a  divine  frenzy.  They  felt  what  had  oc 
curred  without  knowing  it,  and  were  wild  for  con 
firmation  by  knowledge.  Up  through  Kent,  without 
drawing  rein,  this  solitary  horseman  sped  his  way. 
When  his  horse  began  to  fail,  he  turned  to  his  nearest 
kinsman — for  they  were  mostly  of  the  same  blood — 
and  riding  up  to  the  lonely  farmhouse  would  shout, 
"  Cornwallis  is  taken  ! — a  fresh  horse  for  the  Con 
gress  !  "  and  in  a  minute  he  would  be  remounted 
and  pushing  on  in  a  free  gallop.  All  the  night 
he  rode  up  the  peninsula,  not  a  sound  disturbing 
the  silence  of  the  darkness  except  the  beat  of  his 
horse's  hoofs.  Every  three  or  four  hours  he  would 


YORKTOWN.  265 

ride  up  to  some  homestead,  still  and  quiet  and  dark 
in  the  first  slumber  of  the  night,  and  thunder  on  the 
door  with  his  sword-hilt,  "  Cornwallis  is  taken  ! — a 
fresh  horse  for  the  Congress ! "  Like  an  electric 
shock  the  house  would  flash  with  an  instant  light 
and  echo  with  the  pattering  feet  of  women,  and  be 
fore  a  dozen  greetings  could  be  exchanged,  and  but 
a  word  given  of  the  fate  of  the  loved  ones  at  York, 
Tilghman  would  vanish  in  the  gloom,  leaving  a  trail 
of  glory  and  of  joy  behind  him.  So  he  sped  through 
Kent,  across  the  head  of  Sassafras,  through  Chris 
tiana,  by  Wilmington,  straight  on  to  Philadelphia. 
The  tocsin  and  the  slogan  of  his  news  spread  like 
the  fire  in  the  dry  grass,  and  left  behind  him  a  broad 
blaze  of  delirium  and  of  joy. 

"  Cornwallis  is  taken  !  "  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth,  flew  through  the  air,  was  wafted  on  the 
autumn  breeze,  shone  with  the  sunlight.  "  Cornwallis 
is  taken  !  Liberty  is  won  !  Peace  is  come  !  Once 
more  husbands,  fathers,  brothers,  sons,  lovers,  shall 
return  to  the  hearts  that  gave  them  to  the  cause ! 
Once  more  shall  joy  sit  on  every  hearth,  and  happi 
ness  shine  over  every  rooftree."  When  or  where  in 
all  the  tide  of  time  has  such  a  message  been  carried 
to  such  a  people?  Liberty  with  justice!  Peace 
with  honor !  Victory  with  glory !  Liberty,  peace, 
justice,  victory,  honor,  and  glory  now  and  forever, 
one  and  inseparable !  These  were  the  tidings  that 
Tench  Tilghman  bore  when  he  rode  into  Philadel 
phia  at  midnight  of  the  23d,  four  days  from  the  army 
of  York.  The  dispatch  from  De  Grasse  had  been  re 
ceived,  but  the  Congress  and  the  people  waited  for 
Washington.  Nothing  was  true  but  tidings  from  him. 
Rousing  the  President  of  the  Congress — McKean 


266  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

— Tilghman  delivered  his  dispatch  to  him,  and  the 
news  was  instantly  made  public.  The  watchmen,  as 
they  went  their  rounds,  cried,  "  Twelve  o'clock,  all  is 
well,  and  Cornwallis  is  taken  !  "  In  a  minute  the 
whole  city  was  wild ;  lights  flashed  in  every  window ; 
men,  women,  and  children  poured  into  the  streets. 
The  State  House  bell  rang  out  its  peal,  "  Liberty 
throughout  the  land,  to  all  the  inhabitants  thereof!  " 
And  thirteen  sovereign  and  independent  States  were 
proclaimed  to  all  the  world. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

PEACE,    AND    SURRENDER    OF    HIS    COMMISSION. 

WASHINGTON  had  no  doubt  but  that  the  capitu 
lation  of  Cornwallis's  army  was  conclusive  of  the 
struggle,  and  that  the  administration  of  Lord  North 
would  not  be  able  to  put  another  army  in  the  field 
for  the  reduction  of  the  rebellious  colonies.  But  it 
was  quite  uncertain  how  far  Washington  would  be 
able  to  stimulate  the  States  to  renewed  resistance. 
Georgia  was  subdued;  South  Carolina  pinioned, 
though  fiercely  struggling  by  Marion  and  Sumter, 
to  get  loose,  greatly  aided  and  encouraged  by  the 
genius,  the  daring,  and  the  intelligence  of  Greene. 

The  Congress  was  tired  of  the  war;  the  States 
were  worn  out;  the  people,  behind  all,  had  nearly 
given  up.  If  it  had  not  been  for  the  French,  Con 
gress  would  have  dispersed,  the  State  governments 
dissolved,  and  Lord  Dunmore  and  Tryon  would 
have  been  re-established  in  enlarged  proconsulships, 
and  confiscation  and  hanging  would  have  been  the 
order  of  the  day.  The  suppression  of  the  rising  of 
1745  in  England  had  given  the  rebels  of  America 
warning  of  what  was  to  be  expected  by  them  if  they 
failed.  Public  credit  did  not  exist,  and,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  gold  and  silver  coin  was  almost  entirely  absent. 
A  little  of  it  was  hoarded,  but  most  of  it  had  per 
meated,  evaporated,  percolated  through  the  lines,  as 


268  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

money  always  does  from  places  of  danger  to  places 
of  safety.  All  the  gold  and  silver  had  gone  into 
British  hands  for  British  security. 

When  Washington  proposed  to  move  his  eastern 
regiments  South,  to  complete  the  operations  on  Corn- 
wallis,  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to  get  some  money 
to  give  them  a  portion  of  pay,  for  the  families  they 
were  to  leave  behind.  His  private  fortune  and  es 
tate  of  Mount  Vernon  had  been  mortgaged  before 
to  keep  troops  in  the  field,  in  the  terrible  stress  of 
i777-'78.  He  had  not  money  enough  to  pay  an 
express  to  take  a  letter  from  his  camp  on  the  Hud 
son  to  the  French  minister  in  Philadelphia,  but  was 
obliged  to  trust  it  to  the  ordinary  post.  So,  when 
he  prepared  to  move,  he  called  on  Robert  Morris, 
his  unfailing  and  unfaltering  support,  for  cash,  and 
Morris  started  to  hunt  it  among  the  Quakers.  They 
had  none;  and  he  actually  went  to  the  Count  de 
Rochambeau,  without  Washington's  knowledge,  and 
borrowed  from  him  twenty  thousand  hard  dollars, 
which  Morris  promised  to  return  by  October  ist. 

Relying  on  luck — which  never  deserts  those  who 
rely  on  themselves — Morris,  who  when  he  obtained 
the  money  had  not  the  faintest  idea  of  where  he 
could  find  it  to  return  it  according  to  promise,  was 
supplied  by  Henry  Laurens,  who  arrived  in  Bos 
ton  on  August  25th,  with  two  and  a  half  million 
livres  in  cash,  part  of  the  six  million  granted,  given, 
or  loaned  by  the  King  of  France.  So  French  gold 
actually  paid  the  American  troops  to  go  to  York- 
town.  There  were  seven  thousand  French  there, 
and  fifty-five  hundred  American  Continentals.  The 
French  fleet  held  the  water,  and  without  it  there 
would  have  been  no  Yorktown,  as  there  would  also 


PEACE— SURRENDER  OF  HIS  COMMISSION.  269 

have  been  none  without  De  Rochambeau.  The 
country  in  October,  1781,  wanted  peace.  It  wanted 
to  stop  fighting,  and  peace  was  the  very  worst  thing 
it  could  have. 

The  danger  was  that  the  French  might  agree  to 
a  general  peace  on  the  basis  of  the  uti  possidetis,  and 
this  would  leave  all  Georgia,  Charleston,  and  the  low 
country  of  South  Carolina,  Wilmington  on  the  Cape 
Fear,  New  York  city,  and,  substantially,  Rhode 
Island,  in  the  possession  of  the  English — the  Tories, 
the  loyalists — perpetual  exasperating  wounds,  like 
broken  spearheads  thrust  into  the  side  of  the  Union, 
to  irritate  and  harass  and  destroy  forever  until  re 
moved  by  heroic  surgery.  Amid  the  universal  de 
lirium  of  self-congratulation  and  exaggeration  of 
achievement — the  necessary  and  natural  conse 
quence  of  success — the  great  labor  was  to  keep 
somebody's  head  straight  and  cool.  "  We  are  great 
men,  great  statesmen,  great  soldiers !  See  our  mag 
nificent  strategy !  We  have  swept  the  British  flag 
from  the  seas  and  penned  it  into  three  or  four  posts 
on  land  !  "  Such  was  the  feeling  in  the  Congress,  in 
the  States,  among  the  people.  But  Washington  knew 
that  there  was  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it;  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  De  Rochambeau's  arrival,  the  Con 
gress  would  have  made  terms  with  the  British  com 
missioners,  and  have  swiftly  taken  Lord  North's 
pardon  on  their  knees;  and  he  knew  that  now,  un 
less  the  French  were  firm,  the  Congress  would  make 
peace  on  the  basis  of  the  uti  possidetis  without  the 
slightest  hesitation. 

As  soon,  therefore,  as  he  had  marched  his  paroled 
prisoners  from  Yorktown,  he  sent  Greene  everything 
he  could  spare  to  support  him  in  South  Carolina, 


270  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

and  started  Wayne  for  Georgia.  To  the  Congress 
and  to  the  leading  men  in  the  States  he  wrote,  as 
was  his  custom,  at  great  length,  explaining  the  situ 
ation,  and  making  clear  the  very  great  danger  by 
which  the  cause  of  American  independence  and 
liberty  was  threatened.  Peace  now,  he  said,  would 
be  disaster,  second  only  to  absolute  subjugation. 
It  would  inevitably  lead  to  future  incessant  war, 
intestine  struggle,  and  subjugation  by  some  foreign 
power,  even  if  the  mother  country  abandoned  us. 

These  admonitions,  exhortations,  and  explana 
tions  were  begun  at  Yorktown,  and  he  never  ceased 
them  until  the  definitive  treaty  of  peace  recognized 
by  name  the  thirteen  free,  sovereign,  and  independ 
ent  States,  who  had  declared  their  independence  on 
July  4,  1776,  and  for  whom  he  had  struggled  and 
fought.  On  his  return  to  the  army  of  the  North  he 
found  great  dissatisfaction  and  deep-seated  discon 
tent.  The  war  was  over.  Everybody  had  got  rich, 
and  what  they  wanted,  except  the  soldiers;  nothing 
was  done  for  them,  and  they  were  to  be  turned  out  on 
the  roadside  to  beg,  or  starve,  or  rob.  What  justice 
was  there  in  that  ?  What  right  had  Congress  to  put 
honest  men  in  such  a  dilemma,  or  to  present  to  them 
such  an  alternative  ?  These  were  hard  questions  to 
answer.  Washington  rode  from  Yorktown  through 
Fredericksburg,  Alexandria,  and  Annapolis  to  Phila 
delphia.  Everywhere  he  was  received  with  the  most 
intense  enthusiasm  and  warmest  devotion. 

No  event  has  occurred  in  American  history 
which  has  ever  elicited  so  much  feeling  as  the  sur 
render  at  Yorktown,  and  the  subsequent  triumphant 
march  of  Washington  through  the  country.  He  was 
absolutely  in  control  of  everything.  He  was  omnip 


PEACE— SURRENDER   OF    HIS  COMMISSION.   2/I 

otent  as  far  as  mortal  power  could  be,  for  he  could 
do  whatever  Congress  or  the  States  could  do ;  but 
he  could  not  revive  dead  credit  or  reinvigorate  para 
lyzed  currency.  At  the  raising  of  a  finger  he  would 
have  been  intrusted  with  all  authority  on  just  such 
terms  as  he  chose  to  mark  out,  and  could  have  been 
Protector,  President,  Dictator,  or  King,  as  he  pleased. 
It  is  certain  that  no  such  wish  ever  sullied  his  soul. 
The  question  was  discussed  in  many  circles,  and 
of  necessity  the  discussion  must  more  or  less  have 
reached  his  ears.  He  spent  the  winter  of  i78i-'82 
with  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  and  did  not  join 
the  army  at  Newburg  until  April  of  the  latter  year. 
There  he  found  the  discontent  of  the  army,  officers 
and  men,  rank  and  file,  worse  than  ever. 

Colonel  Lewis  Nicola,  a  fussy  character  who  had 
commanded  an  invalid  battalion  about  Philadelphia, 
wrote  him  a  letter,  explaining  at  great  length  that 
the  cause  of  the  lack  of  provision  for  the  soldiers 
was  the  form  of  government,  or  no-government, 
under  which  every  one  was  suffering;  that  the  only 
relief  that  could  be  secured  by  the  country  was  in 
the  setting  up  a  king,  and  that  he  was  the  man  se 
lected  by  Providence  for  the  place.  He  did  not  say, 
but  the  inference  was  unavoidable,  that  Providence 
had  also  sagaciously  chosen  him,  Nicola,  to  announce 
the  choice,  and  to  superintend  the  arrangements  for 
carrying  that  choice  into  effect.  The  proposition  was 
absurd.  Notwithstanding  the  gush  of  the  Middle 
and  Northern  States,  the  climate  of  the  Chesapeake 
was  exceedingly  unpropitious  for  a  new  growth  of 
kings.  They  might  have  tolerated  James  III,  or 
one  of  the  heirs  of  the  Charleses,  but  they  certainly 
would  never  have  submitted  to  any  upstart,  pinch- 


2/2 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


beck  royalty.  The  house  of  Hanover  was  too  par 
venu  for  them.  Notwithstanding  Washington  must 
have  understood  the  feather-headed  and  irresponsi 
ble  character  of  Nicola,  he  embraced  the  opportunity 
to  put  himself  on  record  on  a  subject  which  he  knew 
was  the  topic  of  grave  discussion  among  responsible 
people.  He  wrote :  "  With  a  mixture  of  great  surprise 
and  astonishment  I  have  read  with  attention  the  sen 
timents  you  have  submitted  for  my  approval.  ...  I 
am  much  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what  part  of  my  con 
duct  could  have  given  encouragement  to  an  address 
which  to  me  seems  big  with  the  greatest  mischiefs 
that  can  befall  my  country.  If  I  am  not  deceived  in 
knowledge  of  myself,  you  could  not  have  found  a 
person  to  whom  your  schemes  are  more  disagree 
able."  It  may  be  unjust  to  suspect  that  this  letter 
was  more  the  result  of  careful  deliberation  than  an 
indignant  outburst  of  outraged  civic  virtue,  but  it 
certainly  will  bear  that  interpretation.  Washington 
knew  Nicola,  and  was  aware  that  nothing  from  him 
merited  serious  attention ;  but  he  also  knew  that 
loose  talk  of  the  kind  was  floating  about,  and  he 
considered  it  wise  to  stop  it  at  once.  The  Northern 
States  might  have  tolerated  a  king,  the  Southern 
never  would.  The  French  army  rejoined  him  at 
Verplanck's  Point,  on  the  Hudson,  and  his  task  was 
thenceforward  to  bring  the  war  to  a  conclusion. 
Sir  Guy  Carleton,  who  had  succeeded  Sir  Henry 
Clinton  in  command  at  New  York,  and  Admiral 
Digby,  in  charge  of  the  fleet,  officially  informed  him 
of  the  movements  in  Parliament  looking  to  a  recog 
nition  of  the  States  and  a  cessation  of  hostilities. 
But  Washington  insisted  to  his  correspondents,  the 
Governors  of  States,  and  to  the  Congress,  that  the 


PEACE-SURRENDER  OF   HIS  COMMISSION.   273 

only  sure  reliance  for  independence  was  prepara 
tion  for  war — active,  aggressive  war.  He  found  a 
paper  circulating  in  the  army,  signed  by  general  and 
field  officers,  setting  forth  the  grievances  of  the  sol 
diers,  and  calling  for  a  general  meeting  of  officers. 
He  issued  a  general  order  censuring  the  temper  of 
the  call,  and  appointing  the  time  and  place  for  a 
meeting  to  be  held  on  Saturday,  March  15,  1783. 

The  meeting  was  held,  and  General  Gates  called 
to  the  chair,  when  the  commander  in  chief  appeared. 
He  apologized  for  being  present,  which  he  had  not 
intended,  he  said,  when  he  issued  the  order  directing 
the  meeting.  The  diligence,  however,  which  had 
been  exhibited  in  circulating  anonymous  writings 
rendered  it  necessary  that  he  should  give  his  senti 
ments  to  the  army  on  the  nature  and  tendency  of 
them.  He  then  read  a  carefully  considered  address, 
in  which  he  showed  the  great  danger  of  exasperating 
the  feelings  of  the  army,  which,  he  admitted,  had 
great  cause  for  complaint,  and  he  said :  "  For  my 
self,  a  recollection  of  the  cheerful  assistance  and 
prompt  obedience  I  have  experienced  from  you 
under  every  vicissitude  of  fortune,  and  the  sincere 
affection  I  feel  for  an  army  I  have  so  long  had  the 
honor  to  command,  will  oblige  me  to  declare,  in  this 
public  and  solemn  manner,  that  for  the  attainment 
of  complete  justice  for  all  your  toils  and  dangers, 
and  the  gratification  of  every  wish,  so  far  as  may 
be  done  consistently  with  the  great  duty  I  owe  my 
country  and  those  powers  we  are  bound  to  respect, 
you  may  fully  command  my  services  to  the  utmost 
extent  of  my  abilities. 

"  While  I  give  you  these  assurances,  and  pledge 
myself  in  the  most  unequivocal  manner  to  exert 


274 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


whatever  abilities  I  am  possessed  of  in  your  favor, 
let  me  entreat  you,  gentlemen,  on  your  part,  not  to 
take  any  measures  which,  viewed  in  the  calm  light  of 
reason,  will  lessen  the  dignity  and  sully  the  glory 
you  have  hitherto  maintained.  Let  me  request  you 
to  rely  on  the  plighted  faith  of  your  country,  and 
place  full  confidence  in  the  purity  of  the  intentions 
of  Congress  ;  that  previous  to  your  dissolution  as  an 
army  they  will  cause  all  your  accounts  to  be  fairly 
liquidated,  as  directed  in  the  resolutions  which  were 
published  to  you  two  days  ago  ;  and  that  they  will 
adopt  the  most  effectual  measures  in  their  power  to 
render  ample  justice  to  you  for  your  faithful  and 
meritorious  services. 

"And  let  me  conjure  you,  in  the  name  of  our 
common  country,  as  you  value  your  own  sacred 
honor,  as  you  respect  the  rights  of  humanity,  and  as 
you  regard  the  military  and  national  character  of 
America,  to  express  your  utmost  horror  and  detesta 
tion  of  the  man  who  wishes,  under  any  specious  pre 
tenses,  to  overturn  the  liberties  of  our  country,  and 
who  wickedly  attempts  to  open  the  floodgates  of 
civil  discord  and  deluge  our  rising  empire  in  blood. 

"By  thus  determining  and  thus  acting,  you  will 
pursue  the  plain  and  direct  road  to  the  attainment  of 
your  wishes;  you  will  defeat  the  insidious  designs  of 
our  enemies,  who  are  compelled  to  resort  from  open 
force  to  secret  artifice ;  you  will  give  one  more  dis 
tinguished  proof  of  unexampled  patriotism  and  pa 
tient  virtue  rising  superior  to  the  pressure  of  the 
most  complicated  sufferings  ;  and  you  will,  by  the 
dignity  of  your  conduct,  afford  occasion  for  pos 
terity  to  say,  when  speaking  of  the  glorious  example 
you  have  exhibited  to  mankind,  '  Had  this  day  been 


PEACE-SURRENDER   OF   HIS   COMMISSION. 


275 


wanting,  the  world  had  never  seen  the  last  stage  of 
perfection  to  which  human  nature  is  capable  of  at 
taining.'  " 

Washington  then  bowed  and  withdrew,  and  Knox 
at  once  offered  resolutions,  seconded  by  Putnam, 
reciprocating  his  expressions  of  confidence  and  af 
fection,  and  asserting  that  no  circumstances  of  dis 
tress  would  ever  induce  the  army  to  sully  the  glory 
acquired  by  so  much  blood  and  eight  years'  faithful 
services.  They  reiterated  their  confidence  in  Con 
gress  and  their  country,  and  requested  the  com 
mander  in  chief  to  write  the  President  of  Congress, 
earnestly  requesting  a  speedy  decision  on  the  late 
address  forwarded  by  a  committee  of  the  army.  He 
did  so,  and  Congress  speedily  passed  a  resolution  pro 
viding  for  five  years'  full  pay  to  be  given  officers  and 
men  on  their  discharge. 

The  general  treaty  of  peace  acknowledging  the 
independence  of  the  States  by  name  was  signed  at 
Paris,  January  20,  1783.  On  March  23d,  a  French 
vessel  of  D'Estaing's  fleet  arrived  at  Philadelphia, 
bringing  a  letter  from  Lafayette,  and  the  official  an 
nouncement  of  the  execution  of  the  treaty.  In  a 
few  days  Sir  Guy  Carleton  informed  Washington  of 
the  fact,  and  that  he  was  ordered  to  proclaim  a  gen 
eral  cessation  of  hostilities  by  land  and  sea,  which 
he  did.  A  similar  proclamation  was  issued  by  Con 
gress  on  the  i yth  of  April.  Peace  was  announced  in 
general  orders  on  the  ipth  day  of  April,  on  the  eighth 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Lexington.  The  men 
were  freely  furloughed,  and  allowed  to  take  with 
them  their  arms  and  accoutrements. 

While  the  main  army  thus  dissolved  without  dis 
order,  some  incidents  occurred  not  equally  credit- 
19 


2;6  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

able.  About  eighty  new  recruits  of  the  Pennsyl 
vania  line,  stationed  at  Lancaster,  suddenly  mutinied, 
and  marched  to  Philadelphia,  where  they  were  joined 
by  about  two  hundred  soldiers  from  the  barracks, 
surrounded  Congress  and  the  Supreme  Executive 
Council  of  Pennsylvania,  and  demanded  justice,  with 
threats  of  violence  if  their  demands  were  not  com 
plied  with  in  twenty  minutes.  Congress  adjourned 
to  Princeton,  and  Washington  dispatched  General 
Howe  with  fifteen  hundred  veterans  to  quell  the 
mutiny.  Several  of  the  mutineers  were  tried  by 
court-martial,  two  condemned  to  death,  but  par 
doned,  and  four  received  corporal  punishment.  By 
a  proclamation  of  Congress  of  October  i8th,  all  fur- 
loughed  officers  and  men  were  discharged,  and  all  oth 
ers  were  to  be  discharged  on  November  3d.  Sir  Guy 
Carleton  evacuated  New  York  on  the  25th  of  Novem 
ber,  and  American  troops  took  possession  of  the  city. 
On  December  4th,  Washington  took  leave  of  his 
officers  at  Fraunce's  tavern,  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
and  started  on  his  long  ride  to  Annapolis,  where  Con 
gress  was  then  in  session,  to  resign  his  commission 
and  thence  to  Mount  Vernon  and  home  to  Virginia. 
He  stopped  at  Philadelphia  to  adjust  with  the  Con 
troller  of  the  Treasury  the  accounts  of  his  personal 
expenditures  from  the  day  he  left  Philadelphia  in 
1775  down  to  December  13,  1783.  These  accounts 
were  kept  in  his  own  handwriting  with  the  utmost 
exactness,  and  included  money  expended  for  secret 
service  and  various  incidental  charges,  with  vouchers 
for  all  payments.  The  gross  amount  was  fourteen 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds  sterling,  for  money 
actually  expended ;  no  pay  was  charged  or  received. 
His  account  was  paid. 


PEACE— SURRENDER   OF   HIS  COMMISSION.   277 

He  arrived  at  Annapolis  on  December  2oth,  where 
elaborate  and  ceremonious  preparations  were  made 
for  his  reception.  On  his  arrival  he  addressed  a  let 
ter  to  the  President  of  Congress,  requesting  to  know 
in  what  manner  it  would  be  most  proper  to  offer  his 
resignation — whether  in  writing  or  at  an  audience. 
The  latter  mode  was  adopted,  and  the  Hall  of  Con 
gress — the  Senate  Chamber  of  the  General  Assembly 
of  Maryland — appointed  for  the  ceremonial ;  the  day, 
Tuesday,  December  23,  1783.  A  committee  was  ap 
pointed  by  Congress  to  arrange  the  ceremonial  for 
this  proceeding,  for  it  was  felt  to  be  an  important 
historical  event,  which  must  be  celebrated  with  due 
order  and  proper  solemnity. 

During  the  war  the  Congress  was  constantly 
struggling  with  the  apprehension  of  a  dictatorship, 
and  among  them  the  fear  of  Washington  grew,  as  his 
reputation  and  influence  enlarged.  They  always 
claimed  and  asserted  the  superiority  of  the  civil  over 
the  military  power,  and  even  in  the  very  crisis  of 
their  fate  bore  themselves  as  ambassadors  of  sover 
eign  States,  to  whom  the  army  and  its  commander  in 
chief  were  subordinate.  "  On  Monday  and  Tuesday, 
September  3  and  4,  1781,"  says  the  contemporary 
record,  "  the  French  army,  under  command  of  his 
Excellency  Count  de  Rochambeau,  passed  in  review 
before  his  Excellency  the  President,  and  the  Honor 
able  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  at  the  State 
House  in  this  city  (Philadelphia).  The  President 
was  covered;  his  Excellency  General  Washington, 
commander  in  chief,  the  Count  de  Rochambeau,  etc., 
stood  on  his  left  hand,  uncovered."  The  army  was 
on  the  march  for  Virginia,  York,  and  Cornwallis. 
The  committee  of  Congress  on  the  reception  reported 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  details  of  the  ceremony  with  great  minuteness. 
General  Mifflin,  Washington's  old  quartermaster  gen 
eral,  was  president.  Nine  States  were  present.  The 
reception  was  by  the  ambassadors  of  sovereign  States 
to  their  victorious  general  and  the  country's  most 
distinguished  citizen ;  illustrious,  but  citizen  only — 
nothing  more. 

When  General  Washington,  escorted  by  his  staff, 
entered  the  Chamber,  the  members  of  the  Congress 
remained  seated  and  covered  ;  the  general  was  shown 
by  the  Secretary  of  Congress  to  his  seat  specially 
provided  for  him ;  his  staff  remained  standing.  The 
President  informed  him  that  the  Congress  is  ready 
to  receive  his  communication.  The  general  then 
arose  and  read  his  address:  "Mr.  President:  The 
great  events  on  which  my  resignation  depended  hav 
ing  at  length  taken  place,  I  now  have  the  honor  of 
offering  my  sincere  congratulations  to  Congress,  and 
of  presenting  myself  before  them  to  surrender  into 
their  hands  the  trust  committed  to  me,  and  to  claim 
the  indulgence  of  retiring  from  the  service  of  my 
country. 

"  Happy  in  the  confirmation  of  our  independence 
and  sovereignty,  and  pleased  with  the  opportunity 
afforded  the  United  States  of  becoming  a  respectable 
nation,  I  resign,  with  satisfaction,  the  appointment 
I  accepted  with  diffidence — a  diffidence  in  my  abilities 
to  accomplish  so  arduous  a  task,  which,  however, 
was  superseded  by  a  confidence  in  the  rectitude  of 
our  cause,  the  support  of  the  supreme  power  of  the 
Union  and  the  patronage  of  Heaven.  The  success 
ful  termination  of  the  war  has  verified  the  most 
sanguine  expectations;  and  my  gratitude  for  the 
interposition  of  Providence,  and  the  assistance  I  have 


PEACE— SURRENDER   OF   HIS   COMMISSION.   279 

received  from  my  countrymen,  increases  with  every 
review  of  the  momentous  contest. 

"While  I  repeat  my  obligations  to  the  army  in 
general,  I  should  do  injustice  to  my  own  feelings 
not  to  acknowledge  in  this  place  the  peculiar  serv 
ices  and  distinguished  merits  of  the  gentlemen  who 
have  been  attached  to  my  person  during  the  war. 
It  was  impossible  that  the  choice  of  confidential  offi 
cers  to  compose  my  family  should  have  been  more 
fortunate.  Permit  me,  sir,  to  recommend  in  particu 
lar  those  who  have  continued  in  the  service  to  the 
present  moment  as  worthy  of  the  favorable  notice 
and  patronage  of  Congress. 

"  I  consider  it  as  an  indispensable  duty  to  close 
this  last  act  of  my  official  life  by  commending  the 
interests  of  our  dearest  country  to  the  protection  of 
Almighty  God,  and  those  who  have  the  superintend 
ence  of  them  to  his  holy  keeping. 

"  Having  now  finished  the  work  assigned  me,  I 
retire  from  the  great  theater  of  action,  and,  bidding 
an  affectionate  farewell  to  this  august  body,  under 
whose  orders  I  have  so  long  acted,  I  here  offer  my 
commission,  and  take  my  leave  of  all  the  employ 
ments  of  public  life." 

After  advancing  to  the  chair  and  delivering  his 
commission  and  a  copy  of  his  address  to  the  Presi 
dent,  he  returned  to  his  place  and  received,  standing, 
the  answer  of  Congress  delivered  by  the  President, 
sitting : 

"  SIR  :  The  United  States  in  Congress  assembled 
receive  with  emotions  too  affecting  for  utterance  the 
solemn  resignation  of  the  authorities  under  which 
you  have  led  their  troops  with  success  through  a 
perilous  and  doubtful  war.  Called  upon  by  your 


280  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

country  to  defend  its  invaded  rights,  you  accepted 
the  sacred  charge  before  it  had  formed  alliances,  and 
while  it  was  without  funds  or  a  government  to  sup 
port  you. 

"  You  have  conducted  the  great  military  contest 
with  wisdom  and  fortitude,  invariably  regarding  the 
rights  of  the  civil  power  through  all  disasters  and 
changes.  You  have,  by  the  love  and  confidence  of 
your  fellow-citizens,  enabled  them  to  display  their 
martial  genius,  and  transmit  their  fame  to  posterity. 
You  have  persevered  until  these  United  States,  aided 
by  a  magnanimous  King  and  nation,  have  been  en 
abled,  under  a  just  Providence,  to  close  the  war  in 
freedom,  safety,  and  independence ;  on  which  happy 
event  we  sincerely  join  you  in  congratulations. 

"  Having  defended  the  standard  of  liberty  in  this 
New  World,  having  taught  a  lesson  useful  to  those 
who  inflict  and  to  those  who  feel  oppression,  you 
retire  from  the  great  theater  of  action  with  the 
blessings  of  your  fellow-citizens.  But  the  glory  of 
your  virtues  will  not  terminate  with  your  military 
command ;  it  will  continue  to  animate  remotest  ages. 
We  feel,  with  you,  our  obligations  to  the  army  in  gen 
eral,  and  will  particularly  charge  ourselves  with  the 
interests  of  those  confidential  officers  who  have  at 
tended  your  person  to  this  affecting  moment. 

"We  join  you  in  commending  the  interests  of  our 
dearest  country  to  the  protection  of  Almighty  God, 
beseeching  him  to  dispose  the  hearts  and  minds  of 
its  citizens  to  improve  the  opportunity  afforded  them 
of  becoming  a  happy  and  respectable  nation.  And 
for  you  we  address  to  him  our  earnest  prayers,  that 
a  life  so  beloved  may  be  fostered  with  all  his  care ; 
that  your  days  may  be  happy  as  they  have  been  illus- 


PEACE-SURRENDER  OF   HIS   COMMISSION.    28 1 

trious;  and  that  he  will  finally  give  you  the  reward 
which  this  world  can  not  give." 

The  Secretary  then  delivered  a  copy  of  the  Presi 
dent's  address  to  the  general,  who  then  took  his 
leave.  When  he  rose  to  deliver  his  address,  and 
also  when  he  retired,  he  bowed  to  the  Congress, 
which  they  returned  by  uncovering  without  bowing. 
He  left  Annapolis  at  sunrise  the  next  morning,  and 
reached  Mount  Vernon  the  same  night — Christmas 
eve.  As  he  wrote  George  Clinton  :  "  The  scene  is  at 
last  closed.  I  feel  myself  eased  of  a  load  of  public 
care.  I  hope  to  spend  the  remainder  of  my  days  in 
cultivating  the  affections  of  good  men,  and  in  the 
practice  of  the  domestic  virtues."  This  is  the  last 
scene  in  the  life  of  George  Washington,  soldier,  by 
his  own  fireside,  with  his  wife  and  friends,  at  home 
at  Mount  Vernon,  in  Virginia. 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

THE    UNION    AND    THE    CONSTITUTION. 

WHEN  George  Washington  rose  at  Mount  Vernon 
on  Christmas  day,  1783,  it  is  not  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  he  was  the  most  illustrious  man  then  living 
in  the  world.  His  prudence,  persistence,  courage, 
wisdom,  and  patriotism  had  carried  an  infant  state 
through  a  long  war  with  the  greatest  nation  of  mod 
ern  history  to  a  successful  and  glorious  conclusion. 
His  dominating  influence  in  the  result  was  thorough 
ly  understood  and  appreciated  in  Great  Britain  ;  his 
wisdom  and  self-denying  patriotism  were  intensely 
admired  in  France,  where  the  ideas  of  the  universal 
brotherhood  of  man  were  just  germinating;  and  the 
breadth  of  his  military  combinations,  and  the  force 
and  vigor  with  which  they  had  been  executed,  were 
admired  in  the  new  military  nation  of  Prussia  more 
than  those  of  any  modern  soldier  except  their  own 
great  founder.  So  that,  in  Great  Britain,  France, 
and  Germany,  George  Washington  occupied  the 
most  conspicuous  place  before  all  men,  and  was  first 
in  honor,  first  in  reverence,  and  first  in  love  of  all 
living  men. 

The  action,  unparalleled  in  ancient  or  modern 
times,  of  the  successful  leader  of  a  revolt  against 
constituted  authority,  in  which  organized  govern 
ment  had  been  overthrown  and  a  new  order  estab- 


THE    UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     283 

lished — who  had  voluntarily  laid  down  his  authority, 
severed  his  connection  with  public  affairs,  and  re 
tired  to  private  life — this  conduct  produced  a  more 
profound  impression  on  the  world  than  even  the 
military  genius  which  had  directed  the  war,  and  the 
wisdom  which  had  controlled  the  people  through  the 
long  ordeal.  No  one  anywhere  expected  any  such 
event  except  the  men  who  had  known  Washington 
closely — his  friends,  kinsmen,  and  neighbors  in  Vir 
ginia,  some  intimate  correspondents,  like  Jonathan 
Trumbull,  of  Connecticut  and  Thomas  Johnson,  of 
Maryland,  and  his  comrades  in  arms,  Nathaniel 
Greene,  Henry  Knox,  Anthony  Wayne,  James  Mc- 
Henry,  John  Laurens,  Daniel  Morgan,  and  true  men 
like  these  whose  view  was  never  distorted  by  envy, 
ambition,  or  malice. 

The  Continental  Congress  passed  an  unhappy 
time  from  the  capitulation  of  Cornwallis  to  the  de 
finitive  treaty  of  peace.  It  was  plain  what  position 
Washington  and  the  army  were  to  occupy.  They 
were  to  stand  first  in  the  respect  and  the  affections 
of  the  people  and  of  posterity.  But  what  was  the 
place  to  be  assigned  to  the  statesmen  ?  Like  all 
weak  people,  they  had  suffered  from  a  constant 
terror  of  the  man  on  horseback.  They  listened  for 
the  knock  of  the  dictator  every  day  at  Carpenters' 
Hall,  and  when  the  Pennsylvania  militia  surrounded 
them  and  gave  them  thirty  minutes  to  gratify  their 
demands,  the  Congress  thought  the  hour  had  struck. 

The  disbandment  of  the  army  during  the  year 
was  an  immense  relief,  and  when  the  general  at 
tended  at  Annapolis  as  their  servant,  and  in  the  posi 
tion  of  subordinate  had  surrendered  his  commission, 
and  all  authority  of  every  kind  derived  from  office, 


284  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

to  those  who  had  conferred  it  on  him,  he  removed 
the  weight  of  apprehension  which  covered  and  threat 
ened  them.  When,  therefore,  he  arrived  at  Mount 
Vernon  he  was  the  most  illustrious  man  in  the 
world — the  best -beloved  citizen,  and  the  idolized 
hero  of  a  generous,  a  chivalric,  and  a  sentimental 
people.  Not  one  human  being  lived  who  could  or 
would  say,  think,  or  feel  any  evil  of  him— not  one 
anywhere  in  the  wide  world. 

Washington  actually  persuaded  himself  that  he 
wanted  to  end  his  career  in  the  life  of  a  private  gen 
tleman  with  his  family  and  friends,  and,  like  all  men 
who  have  long  carried  a  great  burden  of  official  re 
sponsibility,  believed  that  he  could  relieve  himself  of 
the  responsibility  by  divesting  himself  of  office.  But 
office  may  be  laid  aside — conscience,  the  sense  of 
duty,  never  can  be  ;  and  as  soon  as  Washington  had 
leisure  to  look  around  him  and  appreciate  the  situa 
tion  of  things,  it  was  clear  to  him  that  duty  called 
him  as  imperiously  now  as  when  he  left  Mount 
Vernon  to  go  to  the  Congress  in  1 774-^75,  and  to 
the  army  near  Boston  in  June,  1775. 

Washington  was  fifty-one  years  of  age,  in  superb 
health,  happy  in  fortune,  friends,  and  family  as  few 
men  have  ever  been.  Thirty-three  years  of  his  life 
had  been  passed  in  the  public  service,  and  it  was  ut 
terly  impossible  for  him  to  step  aside  and  let  events 
take  their  course  or  other  men  control  them.  No 
living  man  knew  as  well  what  was  necessary  to  be 
done.  Not  one  could  show  as  well  how  to  do  it,  nor 
conduce  to  the  doing  of  it,  as  he  could.  He  had 
struggled  through  eight  years,  bearing  on  his  shoul 
ders  the  responsibility  of  the  revolt,  with  absolutely 
no  assistance  from  the  confederated  colonies.  They 


THE    UNION  AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     285 

had  no  government,  no  vigor,  no  life,  no  credit ; 
they  could  do  nothing,  and  did  nothing. 

They  had  united  upon  terms  of  an  alliance  they 
called  the  "  Articles  of  Confederation,"  by  which 
they  agreed  to  assist  each  other  in  the  war,  as  re 
quired  by  a  vote  of  the  Congress,  each  colony  cast 
ing  an  equal  vote.  This  Confederation  was  only  an 
agreement  to  agree.  It  bound  no  one  to  action ; 
it  never  collected  a  dollar  of  taxes,  nor  raised  a 
soldier,  except  two  battalions  of  volunteers  from 
Canada,  who  were  mustered  into  the  American  serv 
ice  as  "  Congress's  Own." 

The  States  were  divided  from  each  other  by 
social,  religious,  political,  and  race  differences.  From 
the  first  settlement,  grave  disputes  had  existed  be 
tween  the  adventurers  and  proprietors  who  were 
staking  their  lives  and  fortunes  on  English  coloniza 
tion  in  America.  The  Virginia  companies,  prior  in 
time,  were  prior  in  right,  and  acquired  by  grant  from 
the  Crown  the  larger  part  of  the  North  American 
continent  subsequently  planted  by  the  English. 
The  vacation  of  their  charters  subsequently  threw 
all  their  territory  into  the  control  of  the  Crown 
which  granted  it,  to  Calvert,  to  Culepeper,  to  Penn, 
to  Jersey,  and  various  other  royal  favorites.  But 
though  the  courts  could  vacate  charters,  and  abolish 
grants,  they  could  not  extinguish  claims  or  ideas 
of  rights,  created  in  various  individuals  by  ambition 
or  aspiration. 

Gentlemen  and  merchants  had  subscribed  to  the 
Virginia  Company,  and  had  adventured  lives  and 
fortunes  to  subdue  the  empire  which  it  controlled, 
and  of  which  they  were  part  owners  ;  and  when  the 
fiat  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  extinguished  all 


286  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

charter  rights,  the  original  partners  in  the  enter 
prise  to  settle  the  Dominion  of  Virginia  felt  grossly 
wronged  by  seeing  their  property  divided  out  among 
others.  They  never  abandoned  their  claim  to  the 
original  boundaries  of  the  Dominion  until  the  Do 
minion  became  a  republican  State,  and  in  so  doing 
recognized  the  existence  of  other  free  and  equal 
States  erected  in  her  territory  north  and  south  of 
her.  But  in  recognizing  the  existence  and  the  right 
to  exist  of  Maryland  and  North  Carolina,  Virginia 
still  held  on  to  her  claim  to  the  Western  territory. 

The  County  of  Illinois,  in  Virginia,  included  the 
whole  country  west  of  the  Ohio,  east  of  the  Missis 
sippi,  and  south  of  the  lakes.  The  County  of  Ken 
tucky  comprised  the  country  south  of  the  Ohio  and 
east  of  the  Mississippi.  The  Dominion  during  the 
Revolution  consisted  of  the  present  States  of  Vir 
ginia,  West  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Ohio,  Indiana,  Illi 
nois,  Michigan,  Wisconsin,  and  part  of  Minnesota ; 
and  when  the  States  were  asked  to  come  into  the 
Confederation,  the  coming  in  was  a  tacit  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  claim  of  Virginia  to  this  whole 
territory.  Maryland  refused  to  concede  this,  and 
held  on  with  curious  tenacity  to  her  claim  of  the 
whole  Potomac  as  her  southern  boundary,  and  her 
right  to  share  in  the  great  territory  beyond  the  Mis 
sissippi,  and  she  went  through  the  Revolution,  repre 
sented  in  Congress,  and  contributing  her  full  quota 
to  the  armed  contest,  without  ever  having  been  a 
member  of  the  Confederation. 

It  was  not  until  March,  1781,  after  Virginia  had 
executed  in  due  form  a  deed  of  release  to  the  United 
States  of  all  her  claims  to  the  Western  lands,  to  be 
held  for  the  common  benefit  of  all  the  States,  that 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     287 

Maryland  authorized  her  representatives  in  Congress 
to  commit  the  State  to  the  fortunes  of  the  confeder 
acy  by  signing  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  New 
York  claimed  Vermont,  and  a  bitter  controversy  ex 
isted  between  New  Jersey,  with  Pennsylvania  on  the 
one  side  and  New  York  on  the  other,  about  rights  of 
navigation  and  of  fishery.  Virginia  and  Maryland 
were  in  a  constant  wrangle  as  to  jurisdiction  over 
the  Chesapeake  and  the  Potomac. 

The  first  problem  to  be  solved  was  the  construc 
tion  of  a  more  perfect  Union.  Washington,  with  a 
political  sagacity  that  was  pure  intuition,  saw  at  once 
the  point  on  which  the  power  was  to  rest.  He  had 
read  as  little  history  as  most  gentlemen  of  his  station 
and  generation,  and  was  as  little  informed  as  any  one 
of  the  struggles  that  races,  peoples,  and  nations  have 
made  at  various  epochs  in  different  climates  and  en 
vironments  to  acquire,  to  preserve,  and  to  transmit 
liberty  to  their  posterities. 

If  the  States  were  to  remain  discordant  and  un 
sympathetic,  they  would  become  the  prey  of  dema 
gogues  at  home,  who  would  without  delay  transfer 
them  to  some  foreign  power.  Spain  would  have  no 
difficulty  in  extending  her  power  along  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico,  until  that  would  become  a  Spanish  sea;  and 
France  would  as  easily  extend  herself  up  the  Missis 
sippi  and  Ohio  and  along  the  lakes,  until  she  would 
have  been  re-established  in  that  position  from  which 
George  Washington  and  the  Virginians  had  spent 
their  youth  to  expel  her. 

Washington  had  gone  into  the  war  with  a  bitter 
feeling  toward  the  French  and  the  Papists,  and  a  sen 
timent  of  regretful  affection  for  the  mother  country  ; 
he  had  come  out  of  it  with  a  warm  affection  for  the 


288  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

French  and  the  Catholics — for  the  French  had  proved 
friends  in  need,  and  the  Catholics,  native  and  foreign 
born,  had  been  ardent  patriots — and  with  an  intense 
hostility  to  the  English  Government  and  its  adher 
ents,  the  Tories  in  America.  He  loved  and  respected 
the  Fairfaxes — loyal  gentlemen,  who  grieved  over  his 
fall  and  prayed  for  his  restoration  to  the  ways  of 
duty,  of  honor,  and  of  patriotism.  He  conceded  to 
them  the  right  of  private  judgment,  but  to  them 
alone.  The  many  distinguished  Virginian  families 
who  adhered  to  their  oaths  of  allegiance  and  refused 
to  rebel  against  "  the  best  government  the  world 
ever  saw,"  he  never,  to  his  dying  day,  forgave  or 
forgot;  and  after  the  war  was  over,  while  Mount 
Vernon  was  open  to  all  the  world  who  came  to  pay 
their  respects  to  the  master,  no  Tory,  or  son  of  a 
Tory,  ever  broke  bread  there.  Every  man  who  had 
stood  by  the  flag  on  land  or  sea  was  welcome ;  any 
man  who  had  fought  it  in  open,  manly,  honorable 
war  was  welcome;  but  no  one  who  had  deserted 
friends,  and  joined  with  negroes  and  Indians  in 
servile  and  savage  war,  ever  again  touched  the  hand 
of  George  Washington. 

Something  has  been  said — more  may  be — from 
the  side  of  those  who,  faithful  to  their  hereditary 
allegiance,  staked  and  lost  all  save  honor  in  the  de 
fense  of  the  union  with  the  old  mother ;  but  the 
generation  which  fought  the  rebellion,  which  accom 
plished  disunion,  and  which  established  independ 
ence,  never  made  allowances  for  their  unsuccessful 
neighbors,  but  regarded  them  with  unmitigated  con 
tempt  and  undying  hate  to  the  end  of  their  lives. 
And  Washington  was  a  man  of  his  time. 

To  bring  the  Western  lands  in  connection  with  the 


THE   UNION  AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     289 

East  waa  the  first  step  in  the  problem  of  the  Union. 
He  never  saw  the  Great  Lakes,  but  he  saw  the  future, 
and  he  marked  out  a  way  by  which  a  free  highway  by 
water  might  be  constructed  from  the  Chesapeake  to 
Detroit.  And  by  Detroit  now  passes  annually  a  ton 
nage  greater  than  the  entire  transoceanic  trade  of 
the  United  States.  He  had  originated  this  enter 
prise  long  before,  and  in  1762  had  held  a  conference 
at  Fredericktown,  in  Maryland,  with  Thomas  John 
son,  George  Mason,  and  other  associates  in  the  Ohio 
Company,  for  the  purpose  of  devising  means  to  open 
the  Western  lands.  In  a  letter  to  Johnson,  in  1772, 
he  presses  the  subject ;  and  he  secured  a  charter,  in 
1774,  from  the  Virginia  Legislature  for  a  transporta 
tion  company  on  the  Potomac.  Washington  failed 
to  secure  the  co-operation  of  Maryland,  and  the  war 
stopped  the  undertaking. 

Before  he  retired  from  the  army,  in  the  summer  of 
1783,  he  rode  with  Governor  Clinton,  of  New  York, 
up  the  valley  of  the  Mohawk  and  reconnoitered  the 
line  of  water  way  to  the  lakes,  which  Clinton's  son 
afterward  made  the  route  for  the  Erie  Canal.  In  the 
autumn  of  1784,  accompanied  by  one  servant,  he  rode 
from  Mount  Vernon  to  Winchester,  to  Wills'  Creek,  to 
the  Monongahela,  to  Fort  Pitt,  and  down  the  Ohio  to 
the  Kanawha,  to  the  New  River  and  across  the  Blue 
Mountains  to  the  head  waters  of  the  James  at  Clifton 
Forge  ;  thence  along  the  Piedmont  road  to  Mount 
Vernon.  This  extraordinary  expedition  was  made 
primarily  for  the  purpose  of  acquiring  personal 
knowledge  of  the  country,  in  which  he  had  large  in 
vestments  in  land,  but  also  for  the  purpose  of  ascer 
taining  the  best  way  of  connecting  the  East  and  the 
West.  With  the  wonderful  political  sagacity  which  he 


2QO  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

at  times  exhibited  like  inspiration,  he  was  not  in  favor 
of  acquiring  control  of  the  Mississippi  "  at  that  time." 
Free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  could  draw  the 
trade  of  its  great  watershed  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
and  so  establish  the  Spaniards  there  forever.  Wash 
ington />//  the  impulse  of  "manifest  destiny."  He 
knew  that  the  great  country  of  the  West  would 
be  filled  by  an  energetic,  intellectual,  courageous, 
liberty-loving  people;  their  appearance  might  be 
delayed;  the  British,  by  holding  on  to  the  Western 
posts,  in  violation  of  the  treaty  and  their  plighted 
faith,  might  for  a  few  years  keep  the  Indian  tribes  in 
a  condition  of  suppressed  excitement,  ready  at  any 
moment  to  break  out  into  flagrant  war,  and  thus 
hinder  and  delay  immigration  and  settlement;  but 
civilization  was  bound,  by  the  inevitable  law  of 
progress  of  the  human  race,  to  occupy  and  develop 
the  immense  resources  which  might  be  made  to  con 
tribute  so  immensely  to  the  comfort  and  happiness 
of  man.  It  is  not  probable  that  Washington  ever 
heard  of  Evolution  or  Progress;  but  he  knew  that 
hickory  and  walnut  timber  indicated  rich  land — land 
that  would  produce  corn,  wheat,  rye,  and  oats  in  pro 
fusion  ;  and  he  knew  that  wherever  there  was  rich 
land  the  pioneer  would  find  it  and  take  it  and  pos 
sess  it  and  cultivate  it.  He  would  make  "  home  " 
there,  and  wherever  the  Norman-Anglo-Saxon  had 
established  his  household  altars,  from  that  place  he 
never  receded.  The  rich  bottoms  and  heavy  timber 
of  the  Ohio  and  the  Kanawha  all  pointed  to  future 
empire,  and  the  soul  of  the  politician-statesman  was 
filled  with  visions  and  hopes  of  the  future  of  such  a 
country  bound  to  the  Atlantic  and  dominated  by 
the  liberty-loving,  freeborn  race  that  for  a  thousand 


THE    UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 


29I 


years  had  been  engaged  in  one  constant  struggle 
for  liberty  and  justice  and  right.  As  soon  as  Wash 
ington  arrived  at  Mount  Vernon  he  set  to  work  with 
that  patient  pertinacity  which  above  all  others  was 
his  distinguishing  characteristic. 

He  wrote  to  Madison,  then  attending  the  Congress 
at  Annapolis,  urging  him  to  bring  up  in  the  Maryland 
Legislature,  in  session  at  the  same  place,  the  ques: 
tion  of  some  arrangement  between  Maryland  and 
Virginia  about  jurisdiction  over  and  the  navigation 
of  the  Chesapeake.  Under  the  public  law,  as  it  then 
stood,  the  nation  controlling  the  mouth  of  a  river  had 
the  right  to  regulate  and  tax  the  access  to  the  high 
sea  of  all  the  inhabitants  of  its  upper  waters.  It 
was  not  until  the  Treaty  of  Vienna  that  the  com 
mercial  navigation  of  rivers  which  separate  States 
was  declared  to  be  entirely  free  in  their  whole  course. 
This  made  the  Rhine  and  its  confluents  free.  Similar 
regulations  as  to  the  Elbe  were  made  by  the  Treaty 
of  Dresden  in  1821,  and  of  the  Vistula  and  Po  in 
1815,  and  of  the  Danube  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in 
1850.  The  English  secured  the  right  of  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  by  the  Treaty  of  1763  with  France, 
and  the  right  was  secured  to  the  English  and  Amer 
icans  by  the  Treaty  of  1783. 

Therefore,  when  the  Treaty  of  1783  acknowledged 
and  recognized  thirteen  sovereign  and  independent 
States,  each  State  had  absolute  control  of  all  navi 
gable  waters  within  its  limits.  Connecticut  controlled 
the  Connecticut  River;  New  Jersey  and  Delaware, 
the  Delaware;  Virginia,  the  lower  Chesapeake;  and 
thus  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania  might  both  be  cut 
off  from  the  mare  liberum,  the  free  highway  of  com 
merce  of  the  nations  of  the  world.  An  agreement 

20 


292 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


between  the  States  was  thus  absolutely  necessary  to 
secure  proper  commercial  facilities  to  them,  and 
Washington  proposed  to  use  the  necessities  of  the 
situation  to  promote  the  grand  object  he  had  in 
view — to  wit,  the  foundation  of  a  solid  Union,  by 
binding  the  East  and  boundless  West  by  the  ties  of 
mutual  interest. 

While  the  Maryland  Legislature,  at  his  instance, 
was  initiating  negotiations  with  Virginia  as  to  the 
jurisdiction  over  and  navigation  of  the  Potomac  and 
the  Chesapeake,  he  pressed  the  Virginia  Legislature 
to  grant  a  charter  to  the  Potomac  Company— the 
enterprise  which  he  had  started  in  1762,  and  only 
gave  up  when  he  went  to  Congress  in  1774.  He  was 
made  president  of  the  company,  which  was  to  con 
struct  a  slack  water  navigation  from  Rock  Creek, 
the  head  of  tide,  to  Wills'  Creek,  and  then  a  series  of 
smaller  canals  and  dams  across  the  mountain  to  the 
Monongahela,  and  so  bind  the  East  and  West,  by  the 
ties  of  interest,  into  a  Union  which  should  last  for 
ever.  But  the  fundamental  idea  in  the  undertaking 
was  that  the  navigable  line  proposed  to  be  created 
should  be  a  free  highway  forever  to  all  the  people  of 
the  United  States. 

While  the  Legislature  of  Virginia  was  thus  pro 
viding  for  making  the  Potomac  a  free  highway,  that 
of  Maryland  appointed  commissioners  to  meet  those 
from  Virginia,  to  settle  the  jurisdiction  and  naviga 
tion  of  the  Potomac  and  the  Chesapeake.  Annapolis 
is  within  visiting  distance  of  Mount  Vernon.  It  was 
then  within  a  good  day's  ride.  The  general  would 
send  a  servant  on  a  horse  to  Governor  Johnson  or 
Colonel  Tilghman  or  Colonel  Howard,  requesting 
the  pleasure  of  their  company  to  dinner  the  next 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 


293 


day,  to  meet  some  comrade  of  Germantown  or  York- 
town,  or  some  foreign  officers  visiting  Mount  Ver 
non,  and  by  sunrise  the  following  morning  the  caval 
cade  would  be  en  route  to  Mount  Vernon  for  a  three 
o'clock  dinner.  Such  intimate  relations  increased  his 
influence  among  the  Marylanders,  who  were  already 
devoted  to  him.  He  pressed  the  Potomac  Company 
and  the  question  of  navigation  of  the  Chesapeake 
first  on  the  Virginians  who  were  farther  off,  and  then 
on  the  Marylanders  right  at  his  hand.  The  Virgin 
ians  chartered  the  Potomac  Company.  The  Mary- 
landers  appointed  Thomas  Johnson,  Thomas  Stone, 
Samuel  Chase,  and  Daniel,  of  St.  Thomas,  Jenifer, 
to  meet  commissioners  from  Virginia  to  settle  the 
navigation  and  jurisdiction  question.  Virginia  then 
appointed  Edmund  Randolph,  George  Mason,  James 
Madison,  Jr.,  and  Alexander  Henderson,  to  meet  the 
Maryland  Commissioners,  and  Maryland  then  re- 
enacted  the  charter  of  the  Potomac  Company. 

Washington's  first  move  was  successful.  He  had 
secured  the  consent  and  guarantee  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland  that  the  navigation  of  the  upper  Potomac 
should  be  free  forever,  and  that  the  great  West  should 
have  a  free  access  to  tide.  But  that  gave  them  no 
access  to  the  ocean.  So,  when  the  commissioners  of 
the  two  States  met  at  Alexandria,  in  January,  1785, 
the  general  met  them,  and  adjourned  the  whole  mat 
ter  and  meeting  and  negotiations  to  Mount  Vernon. 
The  agreement  then  made  was  thoroughly  imbued 
with  the  ideas  of  Washington.  It  gave  Maryland 
ers  and  Virginians  equal  rights  in  the  Pocomoke, 
the  Potomac,  and  the  Chesapeake,  and  made  these 
waters  free  highways  to  the  open  sea.  The  Com 
pact  of  1785,  as  it  is  called,  was  the  germ  of  the 


294 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


Constitution  of  1789,  and  it  came  from  the  brain 
and  heart  of  Washington.  It  forbade  Maryland  or 
Virginia  making  any  regulations  of  commerce  as 
between  their  respective  ports  or  over  their  re 
spective  waters  which  would  interfere  with  the  equal 
rights  of  citizens  of  the  two  States.  It  declared  that 
the  flag  covered  the  cargo,  and  that  the  citizens  of 
each  State  should  have  the  right  to  be  tried  for  all 
crimes  and  offenses  committed  on  the  waters  of  the 
Pocomoke,  the  Potomac,  and  the  Chesapeake,  by  the 
courts  of  the  State  of  which  he  was  a  citizen.  It 
made  the  records  of  judicial  proceedings  in  one  State 
evidence  in  the  other,  and  it  provided  for  the  acces 
sion  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  to  it.  The  Arti 
cles  of  Confederation  distinctly  prohibited  the  States 
from  "  entering  into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confed 
eration."  The  negotiations  of  the  Compact  of  1785 
distinguished  between  treaty,  alliance,  or  confedera 
tion,  and  the  agreement  between  the  two  States,  and 
they  not  only  made  the  agreement  between  those 
two,  but  invited  two  others  to  unite  with  them  in  the 
agreement.  The  compact  was  promptly  ratified  by 
each  State,  and  forms  the  law  of  each  State  to-day. 

The  consultations  at  Mount  Vernon  disclosed  the 
identity  of  opinions  between  those  present  as  to  the 
evil  and  the  remedy  and  the  crying  necessity  for 
prompt  action.  The  Articles  of  Confederation  were 
worse  than  useless.  The  very  compact  they  were  ar 
ranging  was  a  nullification  of  its  plain  provisions, 
while  the  one  which  they  proposed,  if  accepted, 
would  result  in  the  subversion  of  the  entire  confed 
eration.  It  was  plain  that  if  Delaware  and  Pennsyl 
vania  came  into  the  compact  of  1785  and  thus  se 
cured  free  trade  among  themselves,  then  the  other 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     295 

States  would  hasten  to  clamor  for  admission  to  its 
benefits.  Madison  caused  to  be  passed  by  the  Vir 
ginia  Legislature  a  resolution,  calling  on  the  States 
to  meet  in  convention  in  Annapolis  in  1786  to  revise 
the  Articles  of  Confederation.  That  convention  was 
only  attended  by  four  of  the  States,  and  it  issued  an 
other  call  for  them  all  to  send  delegates  to  another 
convention  of  revision  to  meet  at  Philadelphia  dur 
ing  the  next  year. 

Virginia  promptly  selected  Washington  to  head 
her  delegation  to  that  meeting,  and  associated  with 
him  Randolph,  Madison,  and  Mason — three  of  the 
Mount  Vernon  negotiators — and  the  consultations 
for  Union  were  transferred  from  Mount  Vernon  to 
Philadelphia,  and  the  negotiations  for  it  from  two 
States  to  thirteen.  On  the  meeting  of  the  conven 
tion  Washington  was  made  president,  and,  although 
there  is  no  record  of  his  active  participation  in  its  de 
bates,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his  influence  was  potent 
in  directing  its  action. 

From  the  day  he  assumed  command  of  the  army 
at  Cambridge  he  had  suffered  from  the  impotence  of 
the  Confederation.  His  practical  mind  understood 
that  leagues  and  alliances  between  States  can  never 
withstand  concentrated  powers  moving  against  them 
from  the  outside,  and  that  dissension  and  difference 
in  interest  and  sentiment  will  always  produce  feeble 
ness  in  council  and  inefficiency  in  execution  among 
themselves.  From  the  beginning  of  the  movement 
at  Mount  Vernon  he  was  not  anxious  for  any  action 
at  all  as  to  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  The  time 
had  not  come  and  opinion  was  not  ripe  for  their  total 
abrogation,  and  he  wished  no  half-way  measures. 
He  wanted  a  government,  not  influence;  for,  as  he  said 


296  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

about  the  Shay  rebellion  in  Massachusetts,  "  influence 
is  not  government." 

The  Confederation  was  an  advisory  body,  where 
each  party  did  as  they  pleased,  and  were  constrained 
by  no  authority  save  their  own  sense  of  right.  Wash 
ington  knew  that  the  Union,  which  he  considered  the 
great  guarantee  of  public  liberty  and  individual  hap 
piness  and  prosperity,  required  a  concrete  govern 
ment,  a  law-making  power  to  make  laws,  a  judicial 
power  to  construe  them,  and  an  executive  to  admin 
ister  them.  He  and  Randolph  arrived  at  the  con 
clusion,  early  in  the  discussion,  that  the  laws  must  be 
made  by  the  people,  for  the  people,  and  be  applied 
to  the  people.  No  scheme  would  operate  or  last 
which  looked  to  coercing  States;  that  would  lead  to 
war,  and  the  idea  of  coercion  of  States  was  fatal  to 
Union  and  destructive  to  liberty. 

But  they  believed  that  a  government  might  be 
constructed  that,  passing  by  the  State  governments, 
would  directly  represent  the  citizens,  and  would  op 
erate  on  the  citizens.  They  had  no  conception  of  the 
idea  of  a  citizenship  of  the  United  States  apart  from 
the  citizenship  of  the  State,  but  they  believed  that, 
securing  and  preserving  the  autonomy  of  States,  they 
would  thereby  secure  the  highest  guarantee  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  Union,  the  Union  being  con 
structed  of  a  number  of  States  whose  citizens  became 
citizens  of  the  Union  and  on  whom  the  Union  oper 
ated  directly. 

With  infinite  labor,  patience,  perseverance,  and 
courage,  Washington  labored  in  support  of  the  "Vir 
ginia  plan  "  introduced  in  the  convention  by  Mr.  Ran 
dolph  for  the  new  government,  and  all  his  influence 
was  exerted  toward  the  creation  of  a  government  to 


THE    UNION   AND    THE  CONSTITUTION.     297 

operate  on  individuals  and  not  on  States.  George 
Mason  separated  from  his  associate  negotiators  of 
the  Compact  of  1785,  and  resolutely  opposed  any  plan 
to  create  a  government  with  centralized  power.  The 
idea  of  a  government  that  governs  prevailed  over 
that  of  one  that  advises,  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  was  adopted  by  the  convention,  and 
sent  to  the  States  for  ratification.  Then  began  the 
greatest,  most  pregnant  labor  of  Washington's  life. 
If  it  can  be  said  "  he  was  the  Revolution,"  it  is  be 
yond  doubt  equally  true  that  "  he  was  the  Constitu 
tion  and  the  Union." 

From  the  day  the  convention  adjourned  at  Phila 
delphia  until  the  ratification  by  the  ninth  State  ful 
filled  the  terms  upon  which  the  Constitution  was  to  be 
put  into  operation,  his  correspondence  was  incessant, 
copious,  all-pervading.  He  wrote  to  gentlemen  in 
different  States  that  they  must  become  members  of 
their  State  conventions  to  which  the  Constitution 
was  to  be  submitted  for  ratification.  He  substantially 
appointed  the  Convention  of  Maryland,  for  he  se 
lected  the  leading  members  of  it.  He  wrote  Johnson 
that  the  Constitution  ought  to  be  ratified  at  once, 
without  conditions  or  amendments.  He  was  not  sat 
isfied  with  it,  and  some  features  of  it  he  probably 
never  would  assent  to,  but  it  was  the  best  that  could 
be  done,  and  the  only  present  means  of  preserving 
peace  and  the  Union.  The  action  of  New  York  and 
Massachusetts  was  very  uncertain.  Rhode  Island 
and  North  Carolina  had  promptly  rejected  it.  New 
Hampshire  was  hanging  back,  and  if  the  vote  of 
Virginia  was  to  be  permitted  to  be  the  casting  vote, 
the  vanity  of  that  State,  he  wrote,  would  be  so  much 
inflamed  that  her  action  would  be  very  doubtful.  If, 


298  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

however,  Maryland  promptly  accepted  the  new  form 
of  government,  this  would  place  its  ratification  by 
nine  States  beyond  doubt,  and  render  the  position 
of  Virginia  of  little  consequence.  The  situation 
would  ultimately  decide  her  to  join  the  Union.  It 
would  be  a  necessity.  The  Maryland  Convention, 
accepting  the  orders  from  Mount  Vernon,  ratified  the 
Constitution,  and  adjourned  while  a  committee  to 
consider  amendments,  raised  on  motion  of  William 
Paca,  was  out,  and  that  committee  of  the  last  cen 
tury  has  not  reported  to  this  day. 

When  the  Constitution  was  accepted  by  eleven 
States,  its  author  and  creator  of  necessity  became 
its  director,  and  was  selected,  by  the  unanimous  vote 
of  all  the  States  and  the  unanimous  wish  of  all  the 
people,  to  put  it  in  operation.  He  secured  the  elec 
tion  in  the  different  States  of  men  selected  by  him, 
known  to  him,  and  esteemed  by  him,  to  constitute 
the  first  Congress.  He  had  great  doubts  about  the 
success  of  the  experiment,  but  he  was  determined 
that  he  would  give  every  energy  of  mind,  heart,  and 
body  to  insure  it.  He  was  convinced  that  the  para 
mount,  overreaching,  all-pervading  duty  of  patriot 
ism  was  to  secure  a  perpetual  union  of  all  the 
States.  He  was  convinced  that  the  first  step  toward 
that,  beyond  government  or  administration,  above 
mere  constitutional  arrangements,  was  to  secure  the 
valley  of  the  Ohio  to  the  seaboard  by  proper  com 
mercial  connections.  Hence  the  Potomac  and  the 
James  River  Companies  and  the  Compact  of  1785. 

With  this  territory,  bound  together  by  social  and 
material  ties,  he  believed  a  State  would  be  founded 
which  would  eventually  include  the  Great  Lakes,  the 
Mississippi,  and  the  islands  of  the  West  Indies,  and 


THE    UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     299 

he  foresaw  the  time  when  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  would 
become  an  American  sea,  dominated  by  the  arts  and 
the  arms,  the  intelligence  and  the  valor  of  the  Union. 
The  key  of  Washington's  whole  conduct  for  the  rest 
of  his  life  will  be  found  in  this  deep  faith  of  his  in 
the  manifest  destiny  of  the  Union. 

There  was  a  great  deal  of  human  nature  in  him, 
and  he  resented  the  conduct  of  the  British  Govern 
ment  toward  the  Americans  during  the  war.  Theories 
about  taxation  without  representation,  and  trials 
without  juries,  did  not  affect  his  mind  so  much;  but 
he  felt  bitterly  to  the  day  of  his  death — as  did  all  the 
men  of  that  time — the  hiring  of  the  Hessians  to  rav 
age  and  destroy,  and  the  inciting  of  the  Indians  to 
all  the  horrors  of  savage  warfare.  He  insisted  on  his 
Americanism — that  the  American,  in  courage,  in  intel 
lect,  in  force  and  vigor,  in  regard  for  justice  and  right 
and  reverence  for  truth,  was  the  equal  of  any  race 
that  ever  lived,  and  he  repudiated  for  himself,  his 
compatriots,  and  his  country,  that  provincialism 
which  looks  to  other  social  conditions  for  standards 
for  morals  or  other  political  systems  for  ideas  and 
models.  He  believed  that  the  American  was  to  de 
velop  a  new  race  and  a  new  civilization,  which  for 
power,  for  energy,  for  virtue,  and  for  valor  has  never 
been  equaled  in  this  world.  For  this  reason  he  laid 
down  the  broad  principle,  ever  since  received  by  the 
Republic,  that  America  never  would  enter  into  the 
politics  of  Europe  nor  be  bound  by  entangling  alli 
ances  with  it.  This  doctrine  was  afterward  applied 
by  Mr.  Monroe  to  mean  that,  as  America  took  no 
part  in  the  disputes  of  Europe,  Europe  should  not 
acquire  interests  in  America,  so  as  to  embroil  herself 
in  American  interests. 


300 


GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 


And  it  seems  as  if  the  doctrine  of  nonintervention 
was  to  apply  not  only  to  the  two  American  continents 
and  the  Atlantic  islands  on  the  American  coast,  but 
as  well  to  the  archipelagoes  of  the  Pacific.  By  the 
Treaty  of  Peace  the  British  were  to  deliver  posses 
sion  of  the  posts  in  the  Northwest  to  the  Americans. 
They  did  not  do  so,  and  during  President  Washing 
ton's  first  term  he  was  constantly  harassed  by  the 
apprehension  that  they  would  stir  up  the  savages 
against  the  outlying  settlements  in  the  vast  counties 
of  Illinois  and  Kentucky. 

As  the  French  Revolution  developed  he  never 
was  sanguine  that  any  great  good  would  result  from 
the  destruction  of  institutions  which  were  the  growth 
of  centuries.  He  saw  the  suffering  that  would  surely 
ensue ;  the  benefits  that  were  to  grow  out  of  it  he 
failed  to  appreciate.  He  organized  his  government 
with  Thomas  Jefferson,  Secretary  of  State;  Alexan 
der  Hamilton,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury;  Henry 
Knox,  Secretary  of  War,  and  Edmund  Randolph,  At 
torney  General.  Hamilton  and  Randolph  had  served 
on  his  staff,  and  Knox  had  been  known  and  trusted 
since  the  camp  at  Cambridge.  Jefferson  was  the 
only  one  who  had  not  been  a  soldier  and  a  comrade. 
He  had  been  American  minister  to  France,  where  he 
had  fraternized  with  that  Revolution,  and  adopted 
some  of  the  most  extreme  ideas  of  the  French  phi 
losophy  of  human  rights. 

On  the  breaking  out  of  the  war  in  Europe  the 
sympathies  of  the  Americans  naturally  crystallized 
around  France,  and  the  French  Revolutionary  Gov 
ernment  claimed  the  assistance  of  the  United  States 
against  Great  Britain  as  guaranteed  by  the  Treaty 
of  Alliance.  Washington  loved  Lafayette,  he  liked 


THE    UNION  AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 


301 


De  Rochambeau  and  De  Grasse,  and  many  French 
comrades  of  the  war,  but  he  never  did  admire  French 
ways  ;  their  demonstrativeness,  their  effusion,  were 
offensive  to  him ;  and  while  he  was  anxious  to  fulfill 
all  the  obligations  of  public  faith,  he  was  equally 
anxious  to  afford  the  Americans  opportunity  to  build 
up  their  enormous  country  and  develop  their  great 
destiny  by  the  arts  of  peace. 

The  Union  was  his  highest  aspiration,  and  peace 
and  neutrality  had  become  necessary  to  the  Union. 
Hamilton  gave  as  his  opinion  that  the  other  party  to 
the  Treaty  of  Alliance  having  ceased  to  exist,  its 
successor — the  Revolutionary  Government — could 
not  claim  the  benefit  of  its  treaties.  Jefferson 
claimed  that  the  treaty  was  made  with  the  French 
nation,  which  lives  forever,  and  therefore  the  treaty 
bound  the  American  succession  to  the  Confederation, 
as  well  as  the  French  Republic  succeeding  the  mon 
archy.  Washington  decided  with  Hamilton — proper 
ly  decided,  but  on  the  wrong  ground.  Treaties  are 
not  modified  by  changes  in  the  form  of  government  of 
the  contracting  parties,  but  continue  in  force  as  long 
as  the  contractors  choose  to  perform  their  obliga 
tions.  But  for  that  very  reason  there  can  be  no  per 
petual  treaty.  No  Government  can  bind  the  future 
forever,  and  the  same  right  to  change  forms  of  gov 
ernment,  of  which  each  nation  must,  of  course,  be 
the  sole  judge  for  itself,  must  reserve  to  each  party 
the  right  to  release  itself  from  the  obligations  of  any 
treaty  upon  fair  notice. 

The  United  States  preserved  their  neutrality. 
The  first  duty  presented  to  the  new  Government  was 
that  of  creating  public  credit  and  public  revenue. 
Hamilton,  in  a  report  unequaled  in  any  language  in 


302  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

any  age  of  the  world  for  grasp  of  conditions,  for 
appreciation  of  principles,  for  vigor  of  intellect,  pro 
posed  as  the  first  step  toward  rehabilitation  of  credit, 
that  the  Union  should  assume  all  the  debts  of  all  the 
States  created  in  the  course  of  the  war  in  the  com 
mon  enterprise.  Washington  understood  that  such 
a  measure  would  draw  large  and  powerful  interests 
to  the  support  of  a  government  on  maintenance  of 
which  their  property  depended,  and  he  urged  the 
measure  with  all  his  influence.  It  was  adopted  as 
part  of  a  compromise  by  which  the  site  of  the  Fed 
eral  city  was  finally  fixed  on  the  Potomac  River,  at 
the  mouth  of  Rock  Creek. 

The  revenue  measure  was  unfortunately  con 
ceived.  It  levied  a  tax  on  distilled  spirits  in  the 
hands  of  the  manufacturer.  Hamilton  was  neither 
an  Englishman  nor  an  American.  He  was  West  In 
dian  by  birth,  and  he  knew  nothing  by  observation  of 
the  deep-seated  aversion  people  have  for  tax-gather 
ers  spying  about  their  houses.  But  theoretically  a 
tax  on  spirits  was  an  ideal  tax.  It  taxed  a  luxury; 
no  one  need  pay  it  unless  he  chose  to  use  spirits,  and 
it  would  be  cheaply  and  easily  collected.  These  the 
oretical  views  did  not  turn  out  to  be  practical.  The 
mountaineers  from  Fort  Pitt  to  King's  Mountain 
flew  to  arms  and  drove  the  Federal  tax-gatherers 
from  their  borders. 

In  1785  there  had  been  an  insurrection  against 
the  State  authorities  of  Massachusetts,  led  by  one 
Shay,  and  Washington  had  been  urgent  upon  the 
Governor  that  it  was  of  the  greatest  importance 
that  the  power  of  Government  should  be  promptly 
exhibited,  and  the  rising  suppressed  without  a  mo 
ment's  delay  and  by  the  strong  hand.  "  We  must 


THE    UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     303 

show  to  the  world,"  said  he,  "that  we  have  a, govern 
ment  which  will  govern,  and  not  advise."  As  soon  as 
he  was  assured  that  rebellion  against  the  Union  had 
arisen  in  Pennsylvania,  he  made  Congress  pass  a  law 
authorizing  him  to  call  out  the  militia  to  suppress 
any  insurrection  anywhere  ;  and  he  issued  his  procla 
mation  calling  out  the  militia  of  New  Jersey,  Penn 
sylvania,  Maryland,  and  Virginia,  and  appointed 
Light  Horse  Harry,  Governor  Lee,  of  Virginia,  to 
command  them. 

The  States  furnished  fifteen  thousand  troops,  and 
Washington  accompanied  them  as  far  as  Bedford,  in 
Pennsylvania.  Lee  moved  farther  west,  but  the  in 
surrection  dispersed.  Some  of  the  leaders  were  ar 
rested  and  tried  by  the  Federal  Court  at  Philadel 
phia  and  convicted  of  treason,  and  were  pardoned 
by  the  President.  The  necessary  lesson  that  there 
was  a  government  which  could  and  would  govern 
had  been  taught. 

By  one  of  the  curious  antitheses  of  history,  the 
only  other  time  the  power  of  the  President  to  call 
out  the  militia  to  suppress  rebellion  was  exercised, 
was  when  it  was  invoked  to  suppress  rebellion  led 
by  the  Governor  of  Virginia  and  the  son  of  Light 
Horse  Harry  Lee.  Washington  assumed  control  of 
the  Government  impressed  with  the  idea  that  better 
government  could  be  obtained  by  ignoring  those  dif 
ferences  of  opinion  that  must  exist  in  free  societies, 
and  the  organizations  that  of  necessity  arise  to  en 
force  policies.  The  great  difference  that  had  arisen 
before  the  Constitutional  Convention  was  whether 
or  not  the  Articles  of  Confederation  should  be  re 
vised  or  a  new  government  formed;  and  in  the  con 
vention  itself,  whether  the  new  government  to  be  or- 


304  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

ganized  should  be  founded  on  States  or  on  the  people. 
Hamilton  and  Edmund  Randolph  favored  a  consoli 
dated  government,  with  great  powers  to  operate  di 
rectly  on  the  people;  William  Patterson,  of  New 
Jersey,  and  Patrick  Henry  advocated  a  government 
representing  sovereign  States,  of  whom  the  Federal 
agent  should  be  the  representative,  and  connected 
with  the  people  only  through  the  States.  The  Con 
stitution  was  a  compromise  between  the  two  theories, 
but  was  more  largely  impressed  with  the  ideas  of 
Randolph  than  those  of  Patterson.  It  was  a  Vir 
ginian  victory,  to  be,  in  the  future,  the  source  of  un 
numbered  woes  to  her. 

The  new  Government  was  organized  on  the  prin 
ciple  of  ignoring  these  radical  differences.  Hamil 
ton  was  placed  at  the  head  of  finance,  and  Randolph 
made  supervisor  of  the  administration  of  the  laws, 
while  Jefferson,  just  returned  from  France,  where  he 
had  signalized  himself  as  the  ardent  sympathizer 
with  the  radical  democracy  of  the  Revolution,  was 
charged  with  the  conduct  of  foreign  affairs  and  ex 
terior  relations.  It  required  the  experience  of  four 
years  to  convince  the  President  that  popular  govern 
ment  can  only  be  carried  on  by  means  of  parties — 
organizations  of  citizens  who  agree  in  desiring  that 
certain  things  shall  be  done  and  certain  policies  be 
applied  to  public  affairs,  and  who  agree  to  join  to 
gether  in  united  effort  to  secure  the  objects  of  their 
desires.  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  radical  Democrat,  did 
not  agree  on  any  single  principle  with  Mr.  Hamilton, 
the  conservative  Republican.  The  one  believed  that 
mankind  had  sufficient  virtue,  intelligence,  and  self- 
control  to  organize  society  so  as  to  secure  the  largest 
happiness  to  the  great  body  of  the  citizenship. 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 


305 


Col.  Hamilton,  referring  to  the  history  of  the 
English  race  and  the  experience  of  mankind,  be 
lieved  that  liberty  and  happiness  could  only  be  ob 
tained  and  retained  by  constant  struggle  against  the 
selfishness  of  human  nature;  that  the  strong  would 
oppress  the  weak,  the  wise  would  take  advantage  of 
the  simple,  unless  they  were  restrained  by  the  whole 
of  society  acting  through  a  strong  government.  Mr. 
Jefferson  believed  that  the  less  government  there 
was,  the  better  for  the  happiness,  the  liberty,  and 
the  security  of  the  people.  Mr.  Hamilton  was  con 
vinced  that  happiness,  liberty,  and  security  would 
all  be  lost  unless  preserved  by  a  powerful  govern 
ment  ;  that  reliance  upon  the  virtue  and  patriotism 
and  unselfishness  of  individuals  to  protect  the  weak 
and  preserve  their  rights  would  be  found  by  experi 
ence  to  be  futile,  and  that  selfishness  would  prove 
to  be  the  radical  motive  of  general  human  action. 
Such  opinions  of  necessity  produced  clashing  acts. 
The  advocates  of  Union  gathered  around  Hamilton, 
and  he  selected  all  his  agents  in  administering  his 
great  office  from  among  them.  Jefferson  selected  peo 
ple  who  sympathized  with  him  to  carry  out  his  plans 
and  to  advocate  his  ideas  and  to  expound  his  demo 
cratic  principles. 

Washington,  after  a  worrying  experience,  became 
convinced  that  his  preconceived  idea  that  govern 
ment  could  be  administered  on  nonpartisan  lines  by 
nonpartisans  was  radically  wrong;  and  he  became 
equally  well  satisfied  that  to  carry  on  a  government 
for  free  people,  its  conduct  must  accord  with  their 
opinions  and  sympathize  with  their  sentiments;  that 
a  government  of  opinion  must  be  operated  along  the 
line  of  that  opinion,  and  this  required  that  every 


306  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

agent,  from  President  to  tide  waiter,  must  sympathize 
with  and  earnestly  support  that  opinion.  The  idea 
that  a  government  of  opinion  could  or  would  be  suc 
cessfully  conducted  by  agents,  principals,  or  subor 
dinates  opposed  to  such  opinion  and  hostile  to  its 
development,  was  effectually  refuted  in  President 
Washington's  mind. 

Early  in  1793  war  was  declared  between  Great 
Britain  and  France.  After  mature  consideration  by 
the  Cabinet,  the  policy  of  neutrality  was  determined 
upon,  and  Randolph  drafted  the  proclamation  which 
has  been  the  model  for  precise  statement  and  the 
basis  of  the  policy  of  neutrality  which  has  been  prac 
ticed  by  the  United  States  ever  since,  and  which  has 
as  much  as  any  one  thing  contributed  to  the  enfran 
chisement,  the  development,  and  the  perpetuity  of 
the  Union  of  the  States.  Directly  after  the  procla 
mation  of  neutrality  Genet  landed  at  Charleston  as 
minister  from  the  Revolutionary  Government  of 
France  to  the  United  States  of  America.  The  Gallic 
temperament  is  never  inclined  to  minimize  its  own 
importance  or  to  diminish  the  value  of  the  achieve 
ments  of  its  people.  In  the  great  gallery  of  pictures 
of  French  exploits  at  St.  Cloud  is  a  conspicuous 
representation  of  the  surrender  of  a  British  army 
under  Lord  Cornwallis  to  a  French  one  under  the 
General  Count  de  Rochambeau  and  Admiral  Count 
de  Grasse,  at  Yorktown,  in  America;  and  at  that 
period  among  the  French  the  American  Revolution 
was  regarded  as  an  achievement  of  French  states 
manship  executed  by  French  arms. 

The  part  played  by  the  Americans  was  regarded 
as  merely  subsidiary  and  insignificant.  As  the  Brit 
ish  had  Indian  allies,  so  the  French  had  American 


THE    UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     307 

auxiliaries,  only  differing  from  the  other  in  degrees 
of  barbarism.  Of  course,  among  French  officers,  the 
aristocracy,  and  the  educated  classes  generally,  a 
clearer  appreciation  of  the  conditions  obtained;  but 
the  French  democracy  believed  that  America  was 
the  creation  and  should  be  the  creature  of  France. 
Mr.  Genet,  therefore,  upon  landing,  assumed  the  part 
of  a  Roman  proconsul  taking  possession  of  a  con 
quered  province,  or  a  British  political  agent  advising 
an  Indian  rajah.  He  began  at  once  to  equip  ves 
sels,  arm  them,  man  them,  and  send  them  out  with 
letters  of  marque  to  attack  British  commerce  on  the 
high  seas.  He  authorized  and  ordered  all  French 
consuls  in  American  ports  to  sit  as  courts  of  admi 
ralty  and  to  adjudicate  all  questions  of  prize  of  war. 

The  general  American  feeling  was  partial  to 
France  and  bitter  against  England,  and  Genet's 
measures  and  movements  were  hailed  with  enthusi 
asm  wherever  he  went  in  the  Southern  country.  His 
route  was  a  triumphal  march  from  Charleston  to 
Philadelphia.  His  letters  of  marque  began  to  bring 
in  prizes  to  Charleston  and  to  Norfolk,  and  there 
was  profit  as  well  as  glory  and  danger  in  attacking 
the  British  under  the  French  flag.  Privateers  multi 
plied,  and  in  a  few  months  would  swarm  the  seas. 
Genet  brought  an  English  prize,  the  Little  Sarah,  to 
Philadelphia,  where  he  proceeded  to  fit  her  out  as 
a  fighting  ship.  Miffiin,  ex-quartermaster  general 
and  ex-President  of  the  Board  of  War  of  the  Con 
federacy,  was  then  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
in  concert  with  Alexander  Hamilton  took  appropriate 
steps  to  arrest  the  vessel  and  prevent  the  infraction 
of  the  proclamation. 

Jefferson,  alarmed  for    his   friends,  the    French, 

21 


308  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

applied  to  Genet  to  stop  his  illegal  proceedings. 
Genet  frankly  declined  to  engage  that  the  vessel 
should  not  sail,  but  stated  that  she  would  not  be 
ready  before  Wednesday.  Upon  this  statement 
Jefferson  procured  Mifflin's  guard  to  be  withdrawn, 
and  the  Little  Sarah,  rechristened  La  Petite  Demo 
crat,  dropped  down  the  river  and  lay  in  the  stream 
opposite  Chester.  Genet  then  promised  that  the 
vessel  should  not  sail  until  the  President,  absent  at 
Mount  Vernon,  should  decide  as  to  the  legality  of 
his  action.  While  Washington  was  hurrying  from 
Mount  Vernon,  La  Petite  Democrat  went  to  sea,  and 
the  Secretary  of  State  went  to  the  country. 

The  affair  of  Genet  brought  matters  to  a  crisis. 
The  Secretary  of  State  had  two  years  before  brought 
Philip  Freneau,  a  writer,  to  Philadelphia,  paid  him 
out  of  the  public  purse  as  a  sinecure  clerk  in  the 
State  Department,  and  established  him  in  charge  of 
the  organ  of  the  Jeffersonian  Radical  Democracy, 
the  National  Gazette.  The  propaganda  of  the  new 
philosophy  distinguished  itself  by  a  prompt  attack 
on  the  Hamiltonian  theories  and  the  Federalists. 
Of  course  this  led  to  opposition  to  the  chief  of  the 
Federalists,  the  President,  and  criticism  of  his  policy, 
his  principles,  his  manners,  and  his  morals. 

Curious  as  it  seems  now,  the  leaders  of  the 
Democracy  pretended  to  believe,  and  taught  their 
disciples  to  believe,  during  the  three  first  presiden 
tial  terms — the  two  of  Washington  and  the  one  of 
John  Adams — that  there  was  a  deep-seated  purpose 
in  the  minds  of  the  Federalists  to  establish  a  mon 
archical  government  in  America,  on  the  basis  of  the 
Federal  Union,  and  as  a  preparation  for  this  to 
introduce  aristocratic  customs  in  social  life.  Wash- 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     309 

ington  always  opened  the  Congress  in  person,  read 
ing  his  address  to  them  from  manuscript.  He  made 
a  general  rule  that  the  President  of  the  United  States 
would  return  no  calls  nor  accept  social  invitations. 
He  set  apart  a  day  for  the  reception  of  everybody, 
gentle  and  simple,  but  he  received  them  standing, 
and  they  were  presented  to  him  individually  by 
name  by  one  of  his  aids-de-camp.  He  invariably 
wore  a  velvet  suit,  silk  stockings,  lace  ruffles,  a  dress 
sword,  and  powder.  This  was  the  custom  of  the 
society  in  which  he  had  been  reared  in  Fairfax,  at 
Williamsburg,  at  Belvoir,  and  the  way  he  was  ac 
customed  to  live  at  Mount  Vernon. 

He  had  been  occupying  a  conspicuous  and  respon 
sible  place — the  most  conspicuous  and  responsible 
in  America — for  twenty  years,  and  position  and  power 
of  necessity  produce  dignity  and  gravity  in  the 
possessor.  But  these  simple,  reasonable,  and  neces 
sary  social  rules  gave  real  offense  to  many,  and  were 
made  the  pretext  of  complaint  by  some.  The  clerk 
of  the  Secretary  of  State  filled  the  National  Gazette 
with  complaints  of  the  aping  of  regal  state  by  his 
Excellency.  Powdered  hair  was  held  up  to  special 
detestation  as  a  sign  of  aristocracy  and  a  mark  of 
gentle  birth  and  breeding. 

So  the  Democrats  attended  on  the  President's 
levees  with  plain  hair  and  unpowdered  heads.  After 
one  of  these  official  functions,  a  friend  found  Mrs. 
Martha  busily  engaged  going  through  the  parlors 
with  a  maid  and  a  basin,  soap  and  towel,  erasing 
from  the  walls  the  marks  made  by  the  unpowdered 
heads  of  the  callers  of  the  preceding  evening  by  re 
posing  their  unwigged  craniums  against  her  freshly 
whitened  walls.  "  Why,  Mrs.  Washington,  what  in 


310  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  name  of  goodness  are  you  about?"  cried  the 
visitor.  "  Oh,  those  dirty  Democrats  !  "  was  the  tidy 
housewife's  reply,  pointing  to  the  spots  made  by 
Democratic  polls  on  the  walls.  With  such  a  temper 
"  in  kitchen  and  in  castle  hall "  an  issue  was  soon 
made.  In  August,  1793,  the  French  Government 
was  requested  to  recall  Mr.  Genet,  who,  deprived  of 
his  official  status  and  relieved  of  his  political  inflam 
mation,  remained  in  the  country,  and  lived  and  died 
a  good  patriotic  American  citizen.  But  the  issue 
with  Genet  proved  that  Jefferson  and  the  Democ 
racy  were  not  to  control  the  policy  of  the  country. 
Events  soon  demonstrated  that  as  long  as  Wash 
ington  was  President  they  were  not  to  exert  any 
influence  over  it.  In  the  following  year  (1794)  he 
sent  Thomas  Pinckney,  of  South  Carolina,  to  Spain; 
who  negotiated  a  treaty  which  defined  the  boundaries 
of  Florida,  and  secured  to  the  United  States  the  free 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi.  The  termination  of 
the  war  had  left  the  Americans  with  feelings  of  bit 
ter  hatred,  detestation,  and  horror  toward  the  British 
and  the  Tories.  The  enormities  of  the  invading 
troops  engaged  in  suppressing  the  rebellion  are  al 
most  incredible.  The  British  sacked  the  town  of  New 
Haven  and  carried  off  the  library  of  Yale  College,  as 
they  did  also  at  Princeton  and  Williamsburg. 

It  is  recorded  that  "  Arnold,  after  his  Virginia 
raid,  returned  to  New  York  rich  as  a  nabob  with  the 
plunder  of  Virginia.  Phillips  was  now  sent  to  make 
his  fortune  out  of  what  Arnold  left  unplundered." 
Judge  Thomas  Jones,  an  eminent  New  York  judge 
under  the  royal  Government  of  one  of  the  richest  and 
most  aristocratic  families  of  the  province  who  ad 
hered  to  the  loyal  side,  has  left  a  History  of  New 


THE   UNION   AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     311 

York  during  the  Revolutionary  War,  which  has 
been  recently  published.  He  says  :  "  The  war,  in  fact, 
was  not  levied  at  rebellion,  but  at  the  Treasury  of 
Great  Britain;  at  his  Majesty's  loyal  subjects  within 
the  lines;  indiscriminately  against  all  persons  wherever 
the  army  moved ;  against  .erudition,  religion,  and 
literature  in  general.  Public  libraries  were  robbed, 
colleges  ruined,  and  churches  of  all  denominations 
burned  and  destroyed ;  while  plunder,  robberies, 
peculation,  whoring,  gaming,  and  all  kinds  of  dissi 
pations  were  cherished,  nursed,  encouraged,  and 
openly  countenanced." 

General  Fitzpatrick,  with  Sir  William  Howe's 
army  advancing  to  the  occupation  of  Philadelphia, 
wrote  to  his  sister-in-law,  Lady  Ossory,  "  from  the 
Head  of  Elk  River,  Maryland,  September  i,  1777," 
on  the  advance  to  Brandywine :  "  The  scene  we  are 
witnesses  to  is  the  most  vile  and  execrable  that 
can  be  conceived.  A  soldier  of  ours  was  yesterday 
taken  by  the  enemy  beyond  our  lines,  who  had  chopped 
off  an  unfortunate  woman's  fingers  in  order  to  plunder 
her  of  her  rings.  I  really  think  the  return  of  this  army 
to  England  is  to  be  dreaded  by  the  peaceable  inhab 
itants,  and  will  occasion  a  prodigious  increase  of  busi 
ness  for  Sir  J.  Fielding  and  Jack  Ketch.  I  am  sure 
the  office  of  the  latter  can  never  find  more  deserving 
objects  for  its  exercise." 

In  addition  to  the  native  British  ruffian  and  bru 
tal  Hessian,  the  Administration  called  to  its  aid  the 
red  savages  of  the  wilderness,  armed  them,  and  set 
them  loose.  They  offered  and  paid  rewards  for 
scalps  without  regard  to  age  or  sex  ;  that  of  the 
babe  in  arms  was  merchantable  as  well  as  that  of 
feeble  old  age,  that  of  the  matron  or  maid  as  well 


312  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

as  that  of  stalwart  ranger  or  sturdy  farmer.  War 
is  barbarism.  It  is  the  release  of  the  fierce,  bad  pas 
sions  of  men  from  the  moral  and  physical  restraint 
imposed  by  generations  of  self-control.  But  there 
is  no  law  in  war  but  the  law  of  force.  The  strong 
est  do  as  they  please ;  and  in  a  war  of  invasion,  sup 
pressing  a  rebellion,  all  restraints  of  religion,  morals, 
sentiment,  and  right  are  thrown  aside,  and  its  taint 
infects  everything,  and  must  be  destroyed.  It  was  so 
in  1688,  after  Monmouth's  rebellion  ;  it  was  so  in 
1745,  after  Charles  Edward's  rising;  and  it  was  so  in 
i775-'8i,  and  always  will  be  so.  The  revival  of  such 
memories  would  be  detrimental,  if  unnecessary;  but 
their  recall  is  now  useful  to  better  understand  the 
next  episode  and  trial  in  Washington's  life. 

The  Treaty  of  Peace  had  bound  the  English  to 
surrender  to  the  United  States  all  the  military  posts 
on  the  lakes  and  west  of  the  Ohio.  With  a  profound 
sense  of  the  importance  of  the  Western  country  to 
the  prosperity,  the  safety,  and  the  glory  of  the 
United  States,  Washington  had  urged  on  the  Confed 
eration  the  necessity  of  securing  the  fulfillment  of 
this  treaty  engagement.  But  the  British  Government 
deferred  and  delayed,  postponed  and  procrastinated, 
until  Washington  became  President.  It  had  never 
gone  beyond  acknowledging  the  independence  of  the 
several  States,  but  had  never  recognized  the  United 
States — the  Union  under  the  Constitution.  It  sent 
no  minister  to  the  Union,  and  received  none  from  the 
Union.  Inflamed  by  the  passion  the  war  had  cre 
ated — for  he  had  felt  none  before — Washington  be 
came  satisfied  that  the  British  intended  to  make  a 
new  effort  at  conquest. 

It  was  this  suspicion  that  was  a  potent  force  in 


THE   UNION  AND   THE  CONSTITUTION.     313 

directing  his  energy,  his  mind,  and  his  enthusiasm 
toward  the  prompt  construction  of  a  Union  which 
would  have  concentrated  power  enough  to  resist  the 
attack  on  liberty  more  vigorously  than  the  Confed 
eracy  had  been  enabled  to  do.  It  was  this  feeling 
that  prompted  his  first  move  at  Mount  Vernon  in 
arranging  the  Compact  of  1785,  the  Annapolis  Con 
vention  of  1786,  and  that  in  Philadelphia  in  1787. 
A  speech  was  reported  as  having  been  made  by 
Lord  Dorchester  at  Montreal  to  a  grand  council  of 
Indian  chiefs,  promising  them  that  he  would  soon 
send  them  on  the  warpath  against  the  Americans. 
At  the  same  time  the  British  Administration  pub 
lished  an  order  in  council  substantially  excluding 
American  commerce  from  British  West  Indian  ports. 
Next  to  the  Western  country  and  the  policy  of 
neutrality,  and  as  part  of  the  same  grand  system  to 
build  up  and  solidify  the  Union,  Washington  desired 
peace.  Arts,  industry,  happy  labor,  would,  he  knew, 
construct  a  powerful  nation,  which  in  time  would 
lead  the  world  in  arts  and  arms,  as  in  virtue  and 
valor,  intelligence  and  character.  He  wrote  Lafay 
ette,  in  1791,  "We  must  have  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  we  surely  will  have  it  if  we  re 
main  a  nation."  Everything  depended  on  that — 
peace,  order,  happiness,  progress.  He  proposed  to 
send  Hamilton  to  England.  But  by  this  time  it  had 
become  clear  to  him,  that  if  he  was  to  adminis 
ter  the  Government  on  the  lines  of  the  policy  he  had 
marked  out,  he  could  only  do  it  by  the  assistance  of 
those  who  believed  in  that  policy  and  in  him.  Mr. 
Jefferson  had  diverged  so  far  from  the  President  that 
both  became  convinced  that  it  was  wisest  to  sever 
official  relations.  The  Secretary  of  State  resigned, 


314  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

and  Mr.  Randolph,  the  Attorney-General,  was  pro 
moted  to  the  place.  After  a  short  service  Randolph 
retired,  on  account  of  some  captured  dispatches  sent 
by  the  French  minister  to  his  Government,  reflecting 
on  Randolph's  official  conduct,  and  sent  by  the  cap 
tors  to  the  British  minister  at  Philadelphia.  Washing 
ton  offered  the  portfolio  to  Thomas  Johnson,  his  old 
partner  in  the  Ohio  and  Potomac  Companies,  who 
had  nominated  him  for  commander  in  chief,  who 
had  been  the  first  State  Governor  of  Maryland,  and 
filled  the  place  of  Associate  Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  until  forced  to  resign  by 
ill  health.  He  urged  Johnson  to  accept  the  duty,  for, 
said  he,  "  there  has  never  been  a  time  in  which  the 
services  of  tried  friends  of  the  Government  were  as 
much  needed  as  they  are  now."  Johnson,  though  a 
younger  man  than  Washington  by  some  months,  in 
sisted  that  his  age  relieved  him  from  the  duty  and 
incapacitated  him  for  the  labor,  and  so  declined.  He 
then  invited  Patrick  Henry  to  take  the  place,  and 
upon  his  declining,  offered  it  to  Timothy  Pickering. 
Pickering,  in  the  Continental  Congress,  representing 
Massachusetts,  had  been  one  of  the  coterie  of  which 
the  Adamses  and  James  Lovell  were  members,  who 
criticised  Washington's  "  Fabian  policy  "  during  the 
war,  and  who  always  opposed  his  recommendations 
for  a  regular  army.  He  was  not,  therefore,  bound  to 
the  President  by  sentimental  ties,  but  he  was  an  able 
man,  a  sincere  patriot,  and  a  convinced  Federalist. 
He  believed  the  system  of  a  Federal  Union  was  wise, 
was  strong,  and  could  be  successfully  operated,  and 
would  serve  to  maintain  liberty. 

Washington  had  directed  Gouverneur  Morris,  who 
was  going  to  England  on  private  business,  to  sound 


THE    UNION    AND    THE   CONSTITUTION.     315 

the  British  Government  unofficially  as  to  when  the 
surrender  of  the  Western  posts  might  be  expected, 
the  complete  execution  of  the  treaty  would  be  car 
ried  out  and  ministers  interchanged,  and  as  to  the 
feasibility  of  negotiating  a  commercial  treaty.  Mor 
ris  made  advances,  was  repelled  with  indifference 
bordering  on  insolence,  and  reported  that  nothing 
was  to  be  done,  except  that  they  would  send  a  min 
ister  to  the  United  States.  In  due  time  George 
Hammond  arrived,  and  almost  immediately  opened 
a  spirited  correspondence  with  Mr.  Jefferson  con 
cerning  Mr.  Genet's  notorious  violation  of  treaty 
rights  by  fitting  out  privateers  in  American  ports  to 
prey  upon  the  British. 

The  dismissal  of  Genet  got  matters  into  better 
train,  and  Washington  returned  to  his  fixed  purpose 
to  establish  certain  relations  with  Great  Britain.  If 
she  intended  to  live  up  to  the  treaty  in  good  faith  he 
intended  to  know  it.  If  she  purposed  to  use  it  as 
a  cloak  to  cover  designs  of  future  aggression  on 
American  commerce  or  the  Western  country,  he  in 
tended  to  know  that.  He  was  clear  in  his  convic 
tion  that  the  new  nation  could  only  vindicate  its 
right  to  live  by  being  ready  at  all  times  to  defend 
that  right  by  arms.  A  people  that  will  not  fight  for 
their  rights  have  none,  was  his  belief. 

The  proposition  to  send  Hamilton  as  minister 
plenipotentiary  met  with  such  an  acrid  opposition 
from  the  Jeffersonian  Democracy  that  he  gave  it  up, 
and  selected  John  Jay,  Chief-Justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  a  man  of  ability,  spot 
less  character,  experience  in  affairs  of  learning, 
and  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  American  ideas  of 
the  President.  Jay  was  a  gentleman  and  an 


.,(,  (.KNl'K.U.    \VASIIIN(;T()N. 

plished  in. in  of  (he  wot  Id,  and  was  received  with  the 
distinction  due  to  Ins  personal  character,  his  social 
standmr,  and  Ins  olhcial  position  by  the  society  of 
London.  lie  was  presented,  and  kissed  the  Onerii's 
hand,  whu  h  was  denonnceil  as  a  j'jave  inliaction  of 
republican  pnnciples  by  tlie  Jellei  sonians. 

lie  nej'ol  lal  ed  a  I  i  eat  y  whu  h  provided  loi  the  pay 
111  en  t  by  t  he  I '  nit  ed  States  of  debt  s  due  to  Mi  it  is  h  mer 
chant-.,  as  settled  by  .n  bit  ration,  tor  surrcndei  o!  ihe 
Western  posts  on  July  i,  i'/<;f),  and  that  Americans 
should  have  the  nr.ht  to  tiade  with  the  West  Indies 
OH  Condition  that  they  should  not  tianspoit  the  pro 
ductions  ot  those  colonies  to  Ktirope.  It  secured  tin* 
i  iidit  to  1 1  ade  direct  with  the  colonies  ol  (iieat 
Mntain  in  the  I'',ast  or  the  West,  but  excluded  the 
iii'hl  to  paiticipalc  in  the  carrying  tiade  between 
tho'.e  conntiies,  and  also  between  them  and  Kurope. 
The  commercial  clauses  weie  entirely  unsat  istactory 
to  the  Amencan  aspnalion  tor  heer  tiade.  They 
felt  already  the  jHllsations  of  the  jM'owmr,  vii'.or 
which  will  in  time  make  them  lords  ol  the  seas;  and 
the  seaboard,  ttom  I'.oslon  to  Chaileston,  bla/cd 
with  indignant  |>iotests  aj-ainst  Ihe  tieaty.  ami  was 
hi'.hletl  by  the  burning  of  John  Jay's  clli^y. 

Washington  deteiinined  to  SIJMI  the  tieaty,  as   the 
best   that    could  be  done  at    that    time,  alter  Ihe    Sen 
ate   had  ratified    it,  on  condition   that    the  West   India 
article    should    be    modified.        Hut     befoie    anything 
definite    Was    done,    the     I'.ntish     ( '.ovei  nment,    with 
British    insolence,  put    its   own    construction    on    the 
linratified   treaty  by  ordering    the   sei/nrc   of    all  ves 
sels   carrying    piovisions   to    l-'iance   or  Trench   teni 
tories  and  allies.     That  is,  they  declared  the  hudi  SIMS 
a  Wif/r  i'/iiu sum,  to  be  ler.nlated  and    used    at    the  will 


THE    UNION    AND   THE   CONSTITUTION.     317 

of  Great  Britain.  No  such  storm  of  popular  indigna 
tion  against  any  public  act  of  public  officials  has  ever 
been  raised  in  the  United  States  as  that  exhibited 
against  Jay's  Treaty. 

Public  meetings  at  Boston,  at  New  York,  at  Balti 
more,  at  Richmond— presided  over  by  Chancellor 
Wythe,  in  Richmond,  by  Livingston  in  New  York, 
Rodney  in  Delaware,  Christopher  Gadsden  and  the 
Rutledges  in  South  Carolina— all  denounced  the  sale 
of  American  rights  of  free  trade  on  the  high  seas. 
Washington  disapproved  of  the  agreement,  but  it  was 
the  best  that  could  be  done  at  that  time.  It  settled 
the  question  of  the  Western  posts  and  the  Western 
country,  that  was  extremely  pressing  and  demanded 
prompt  settlement. 

That  other  question  of  equal  rights  for  American 
commerce  on  the  high  seas,  and  freer  trade  with  all 
the  world,  his  broad  mind  knew  would  settle  itself  in 
time.  If  the  United  States  became  strong  enough  to 
maintain  its  claim  to  rights  by  arms,  they  would  be 
conceded ;  if  not,  not.  And  it  required  another  war 
with  Great  Britain  to  settle  the  right,  in  which  the 
military  genius  of  the  American  race  was  exhibited 
on  land  and  sea,  and  the  right  to  a  free  flag  estab 
lished,  never  to  be  questioned  by  any  power  which 
shall  ever  arise  in  this  world.  The  War  of  1812  was 
waged  to  resist  the  British  claim  to  the  right  of 
search  and  of  impressment  on  the  high  seas.  The 
treaty  of  1815  made  peace  between  the  belligerents, 
without  referring  to  the  casus  belli,  but  the  right  of 
search  and  the  right  of  impressment  perished  under 
the  thunder  of  American  guns,  and  since  then  has 
been  as  dead  as  the  first  Pharaoh. 

Therefore,  content  to  do  what  could  be  done, 


318  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

confident  that  the  future  could  take  care  of  itself, 
immovable  by  popular  clamor  and  impenetrable  to 
popular  rage,  on  August  18,  1795,  ne  signed  the  Jay 
Treaty.  The  episode  of  the  Jay  Treaty  was  but  an 
other  illustration  of  the  powerful  intellect  of  Wash 
ington.  His  indomitable  will  had  been  known  of  all 
men  for  the  preceding  twenty  years.  But  the  coun 
try  needed  peace — rest  to  grow  ;  that  secured,  every 
thing  would  be  safe.  The  constant  threat  from  the 
Spaniard  and  the  British  was  on  the  Western  border. 

At  any  moment  Indian  war  might  break  out  from 
the  Ohio  to  the  Savannah.  The  counties  of  Ken 
tucky  and  Illinois  would  at  once  seize  the  British 
posts  on  the  lakes  and  the  Spanish  garrison  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  the  country  be  precipi 
tated  into  a  war  with  Spain  and  Great  Britain,  insti 
gated  by  them  through  their  savage  agents.  He 
therefore  took  the  step  to  guarantee  peace  and  save 
the  Union.  Maritime  rights  must  settle  themselves 
in  time.  The  creation  of  a  great,  large,  wide-spread 
ing  Americanism,  which  would  obliterate  petty  local 
jealousies  and  provincial  narrowness,  and  would  em 
brace  the  continent  in  its  patriotism  and  the  illimita 
ble  future  in  its  hope,  was  the  most  earnest  desire  of 
Washington's  heart. 

He  was  the  most  direct  man  that  ever  lived,  and 
as  clear-sighted.  He  saw  as  far  and  went  as  straight 
to  his  object  as  any  statesman  of  history.  But  he 
was  also  gifted  with  an  intuition  into  character  and 
motive  which  was  almost  unerring.  He  never  made 
a  mistake  about  men  but  twice.  He  sometimes 
did  about  policies.  But  his  treatment  of  the  Jay 
controversy  was  an  interesting  exhibition  of  sagacity 
and  tact.  The  selectmen  of  Boston  sent  him  the 


THE   UNION   AND   THE  CONSTITUTION.     319 

burning  protest  of  the  town  meeting  against  the 
ratification  of  the  treaty.  He  answered  the  whole 
proceeding  with  a  phrase.  His  reply  to  them  is 
dated,  "  United  States,  28th  of  July,  1795."  It  is 
the  only  instance  in  his  whole  life  where  he  dated 
any  paper  in  this  way.  But  the  phrase  told  the 
whole  story :  The  United  States  to  the  town  of  Bos 
ton  ;  the  grand,  magnificent  whole — custodian  of  the 
happiness,  the  hopes,  the  aspirations  of  untold  gen 
erations  yet  to  be  born — to  the  infinitesimal  part, 
about  a  question  of  present  barter,  exchange,  and 
trade.  That  was  the  thought  he  presented  to  the 
world  in  the  date  of  his  letter  to  Boston. 

Washington  had  been  elected  to  the  presidency  a 
second  time  by  the  unanimous  vote  of  the  electoral 
colleges,  and  there  was  a  general  desire  that  he  should 
serve  for  a  third  term.  But  he  felt  that  he  had  done 
his  duty,  and  earned  his  retirement  from  public  life 
and  the  enjoyment  of  domestic  comfort.  In  Septem 
ber,  1796,  he  issued  his  farewell  address— a  paper  un- 
equaled  in  the  language  for  grasp  of  intellect,  for 
patriotic  sentiment,  and  for  prophetic  forecast.  In 
it  he  set  forth  the  principles  which  had  guided  him 
since  the  definitive  Treaty  of  Peace  had  established 
the  United  States.  "  Be  united,"  he  said,  "  be  AMERI 
CANS.  .  .  .  Observe  justice  and  good  faith  toward  all 
nations,  .  .  .  and  be  independent  politically  of  all. 
In  a  word,  be  a  nation,  be  AMERICANS,  and  be  true 
to  yourselves."  The  "nation"  that  he  exhorted 
them  to  form  was  a  homogeneous  race,  controlling 
geographical  territory  with  the  same  political  insti 
tutions,  united  by  identity  of  descent,  customs,  tradi 
tions  and  principles.  But  Washington  never  dreamed 
of  a  Nation  which  would  obliterate  State  lines  and 


320  GENERAL  WASHINGTON. 

local  institutions,  and  reduce  the  historic  States  to 
the  status  of  counties. 

He  supported  the  administration  of  John  Adams, 
who  succeeded  him  in  1797  as  the  lineal  successor 
to  his  policy.  Adams  sent  Charles  Cotesworth 
Pinckney,  John  Marshall,  and  Elbridge  Gerry  as 
ministers  plenipotentiary  to  France,  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  with  the  French  Republic.  The  gentlemen  of 
the  Directory  demanded  $6,400,000  from  the  United 
States  by  way  of  loan  to  the  Republic,  and  a  bonus 
of  $250,000  to  the  Directory  themselves.  The  Ameri 
can  envoys  spurned  the  demand  with  spirit.  They 
remained  in  Paris  seeking  to  come  to  some  under 
standing.  The  Directory  emphasized  their  view  of 
the  unreasonableness  of  the  American  position  by 
passing  a  decree  subjecting  to  capture  neutral  ves 
sels  and  their  cargoes  if  any  portion  of  such  cargoes 
were  of  British  manufacture.  As  the  Americans 
controlled  the  carrying  trade  of  the  world,  this  was 
equivalent  to  a  confiscation  of  their  commerce. 

Congress  promptly  authorized  the  President  to 
enlist  ten  thousand  men  as  a  provisional  army  to  be 
called  into  actual  service  in  case  of  war.  Adams 
nominated  Washington  to  be  lieutenant  general  and 
commander  in  chief  of  all  the  armies  raised  or  to  be 
raised,  on  July  3,  1798,  and  he  was  confirmed  the  next 
day.  He  was  then  sixty-six  years  and  five  months 
old,  a  vigorous,  hale  man.  He  might  have  dis 
charged  the  duties  of  commander  in  chief  in  the  field, 
but  the  experiment  was  a  doubtful  one.  He  himself 
was  of  the  opinion  that  the  senior  generals  of  the  last 
war  were  too  old  for  active  service,  and  therefore 
selected  Alexander  Hamilton  for  inspector  general 
and  chief  of  staff,  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney  and 


THE   UNION  AND  THE  CONSTITUTION.    321 

Henry  Knox  to  have  the  rank  of  major  generals  in 
the  order  named. 

The  view  which  Washington  had  taken  concern 
ing  the  old  generals  was  justified,  as  the  exception 
in  favor  of  Knox  was  not,  by  the  event.  Knox  re 
fused  to  serve  under  Hamilton  and  Pinckney,  both 
of  whom  he  had  ranked  in  the  old  army  sixteen  years 
before.  But  Pinckney  promptly  accepted,  with  the 
offer  that,  if  it  would  reconcile  General  Knox,  he 
would  give  up  second  place  to  him  and  take  the 
junior  rank  himself.  Early  in  November,  1798, 
Washington  went  to  Philadelphia  to  consult  with  his 
two  major  generals  and  the  Secretary  of  War.  Five 
weeks  were  spent  on  this  work,  and  the  result  was 
reduced  to  form  by  Hamilton,  signed  by  Washing 
ton,  and  forwarded  to  the  Secretary  of  War,  James 
McHenry.  The  organization  of  the  army  was  per 
fected  on  paper.  He  proposed  Alexander  Hamil 
ton,  inspector;  Charles  C.  Pinckney,  Henry  Knox, 
or,  if  either  refuses,  Henry  Lee,  with  the  rank  of 
major  generals  ;  Henry  Lee — if  not  a  major  general 
— John  Brooks,  William  S.  Smith,  or  John  E.  Howard, 
brigadiers;  Edward  Hand,  or  Jonathan  Dayton,  or 
William  S.  Smith,  adjutant  general ;  Edward  Carring- 
ton,  quartermaster  general ;  James  Craik,  director 
of  the  hospital.  Washington  never  believed  that 
there  would  be  a  French  invasion.  Acting  on  his  life 
long  principle,  that  the  best  way  to  prevent  war  was 
to  be  prepared  for  it,  he  arranged  for  the  collection 
of  his  army,  its  organization  and  its  mobilization. 
The  promptness  with  which  the  Americans  took  up 
the  glove  satisfied  the  French.  Their  governors 
were  changed,  and  the  new  organization  opened  ne 
gotiations  with  the  United  States  for  a  peaceful  set- 


322  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

tlement.  John  Quincy  Adams,  then  envoy  to  Paris, 
made  an  amicable  adjustment,  and  war  was  averted. 
But  Washington  did  not  live  to  see  the  restoration 
of  peace.  At  Mount  Vernon  he  was  busy,  since 
his  return  from  Philadelphia  on  the  expiration  of 
his  second  term,  in  putting  his  farms  in  order,  in 
restoring  his  property,  which  had  been  greatly  im 
paired  in  his  twenty  years'  absence,  and  in  arranging 
his  affairs  generally.  He  erected  a  separate  building 
for  the  safe  keeping  of  his  papers,  military  and  civil, 
and  employed  a  gentleman  named  Rawlins  to  record 
his  vast  and  extended  correspondence.  He  also 
gave  to  Tobias  Lear,  his  old  comrade  and  secretary, 
charge  of  all  his  papers,  and  supervised  him  in  ar 
ranging  and  docketing  them.  No  stranger  of  dis 
tinction  came  to  America  without  calling  at  Mount 
Vernon  to  pay  his  respects  to  the  greatest  character 
of  the  age,  as  was  the  common  phrase — "  to  gratify 
curiosity  "  was  Washington's  own  word.  They  were 
invariably  invited  to  stay  to  dinner  and  to  remain 
overnight.  The  invitation  was  always  accepted  at 
the  giving,  and  the  acceptance  was  the  custom  of  the 
country,  and  consequently  the  table  of  Mount  Ver 
non  from  year's  end  to  year's  end  was  never  without 
guests.  As  was  the  custom  with  all  country  gentle 
men,  Washington's  work  of  the  day  was  done  in  the 
morning — the  largest  part  before  breakfast,  the  re 
mainder  before  noon.  The  host  rises  with  the  sun 
and  rides  over  the  plantation  in  early  morning,  to  see 
that  the  machinery  has  been  properly  started  and  is 
working  smoothly.  The  guests  meet  first  at  breakfast. 
That  was  and  is  the  custom  at  Virginian  country 
houses  on  great  estates.  It  prevails  to-day  at  West- 
over,  just  as  it  did  at  Belvoir  before  the  war,  and  at 


THE   UNION    AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 


323 


Mount  Vernon  after  the  master  had  returned.  The 
morning  of  December  12,  1799,  was  overcast  and 
cloudy.  He  rode  out  as  usual  to  make  the  rounds 
of  his  farms  and  look  after  his  servants  and  his 
stock.  By  midday  a  light,  powdery  snow  began  to 
fall,  which  soon  changed  into  a  cold,  drizzling  rain, 
penetrating  the  clothes  and  pervading  the  lungs — 
sucty  a  rain  as  is  usual  in  the  Chesapeake  region  at 
that  time  of  year.  After  being  out  two  hours  he 
came  in,  and  declined  to  change  his  clothes,  for  he 
said  they  were  dry,  and  had  protected  him  perfectly. 
The  next  day  he  went  out  again,  and  that  night  he 
was  taken  with  an  acute  sore  throat — acute  cedema- 
tous  laryngitis  is  now  known  to  be  the  scientific 
designation  of  it.  Dr.  James  Craik,  his  comrade, 
friend,  and  medical  adviser,  was  called  in,  who  ar 
rived  with  two  other  physicians.  They  bled  him 
and  administered  calomel,  and  he  died  the  next  day. 
The  medical  treatment  has  been  greatly  criticised  as 
ignorant,  barbarous,  and  the  cause  of  his  death.  It 
seems  that  this  criticism  is  unjust,  and  the  highest 
authorities  as  specialists  on  diseases  of  the  throat 
of  the  present  day  say  that  the  science  and  skill  of 
Washington's  medical  attendants  were  fully  up  to  the 
standard  of  medical  knowledge  in  Virginia  and  in 
America  at  that  day.  At  this  time  the  case  would 
be  conducted  differently,  but  it  was  treated  with  the 
best  knowledge  that  any  one  had  at  that  time.  He 
had  directed  Colonel  Lear  that  his  body  should  not 
be  placed  in  the  vault  for  three  days  after  his  death, 
and  the  funeral  took  place  on  the  i8th  of  December, 
1799.  It  was  attended  by  the  militia,  Free  Masons 
and  corporation  of  Alexandria,  and  his  many  friends 
from  the  neighborhood. 
22 


324  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

The  world  stood  uncovered  out  of  respect  for  the 
illustrious  dead,  and  America  mourned  him  as  her 
best-beloved  son.  He  was  the  first,  as  he  is  still  the 
greatest,  American.  The  Congress  wore  black  dur 
ing  the  session.  When  the  news  of  his  death  reached 
England,  Lord  Bridport,  who  commanded  sixty  sail 
of  the  line  lying  at  Torbay,  lowered  his  flag  half 
mast,  every  ship  doing  the  same ;  and  the  First  Con 
sul  of  France,  Napoleon  Bonaparte,  in  announcing 
his  death  to  the  army  in  a  general  order,  directed 
that  all  the  flags  and  standards  of  the  armies  of 
France  and  service  of  the  Republic  should  be  draped 
in  crape  for  ten  days. 


APPENDIX. 


GENERAL  CHARLES  LEE  was  captured  by  a  patrol  of 
thirty  dragoons  of  Burgoyne's  Regiment  of  Queen's  Light 
Dragoons  (Sixteenth  Regiment),  commanded  by  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Harcourt,  afterward  Earl  Harcourt.  Banastre  Tar- 
leton  was  in  charge  of  the  advance  of  six  men.  Lee's  party 
and  guard  fired  on  the  British  horse,  and  several  men 
were  killed  or  wounded,  but  Lee  surrendered  at  once,  and, 
as  all  accounts  agree,  in  the  most  pusillanimous  manner. 
He  was  considered  a  deserter  in  the  British  army,  and  he 
was  doubtful  if  his  surrender  would  be  accepted.  Sir  Wil 
liam  Howe  without  doubt  preferred  to  hang  him,  and  only 
Washington's  firmness  and  Howe's  law  doubts  gave  Lee 
reprieve  until  he  could  make  his  proposals  for  treachery. 
The  original  paper  in  Lee's  handwriting,  found  among  the 
papers  of  Sir  Henry  Strachey,  endorsed  "  Mr.  Lee's  plan,  29th 
March,  1777,"  has  been  sold  at  auction  in  New  York  since 
this  work  went  to  press.  It  belonged  to  the  estate  of  George 
H.  Moore,  formerly  Librarian  of  the  New  York  Historical 
Society,  who  published  the  evidence  then  known  in  the  case 
under  the  title,  "  The  Treason  of  Charles  Lee,  Major  General, 
Second  in  Command  in  the  American  Army  of  the  Revolu 
tion"  (New  York,  1860),  in  which  is  reproduced  in  facsimile 
the  autograph  "  Plan  of  Mr.  Lee."  Mr.  Lee's  plan  certainly 
was  adopted  by  General  Howe  in  part,  and  in  his  move 
ment  on  Philadelphia,  but  more  curious  still,  it  seems  to  have 
been  the  plan  of  the  War  Office  of  the  British  Government  in 
the  War  of  1812-' 14  for  the  occupation  of  the  line  of  the  Po- 


326  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

tomac  and  the  Chesapeake  by  the  capture  of  Washington  and 
Baltimore. 

"MR.  LEE'S  PLAN— 29TH  MARCH,  1777. 

"  As  on  the  one  hand  it  appears  to  me  that  by  the  con 
tinuance  of  the  War  America  has  no  chance  of  obtaining 
the  ends  She  proposes  to  herself ;  that  altho  by  struggling 
She  may  put  the  Mother  Country  to  very  serious  expence 
both  in  blood  and  Money,  yet  She  must  in  the  end,  after 
great  desolation,  havock  and  slaughter,  be  reduc'd  to  submit 
to  terms  much  harder  than  might  probably  be  granted  at 
present — and  as  on  the  other  hand  Great  Britain  tho' 
ultimately  victorious,  must  suffer  very  heavily  even  in  the 
process  of  her  victories,  every  life  lost  and  every  guinea  spent 
being  in  fact  worse  than  thrown  away :  it  is  only  wasting  her 
own  property,  shedding  her  own  blood  and  destroying  her 
own  strength  ;  and  as  I  am  not  only  persuaded  from  the  high 
opinion  I  have  of  the  humanity  and  good  sense  of  Lord  and 
General  Howe  that  the  terms  of  accommodation  will  be  as 
moderate  as  their  powers  will  admit,  but  that  their  powers 
are  more  ample  than  their  Successors  (shou'd  any  accident 
happen)  wou'd  be  vested  with,  I  think  myself  not  only  justi 
fiable  but  bound  in  conscience  to  furnish  all  the  h'ghts,  I  can, 
to  enable  'em  to  bring  matters  to  a  conclusion  in  the  most 
compendious  manner  and  consequently  the  least  expensive  to 
both  Parties — 1  do  this  with  the  more  readiness  as  I  know 
the  most  generous  use  will  be  made  of  it  in  all  respects — their 
humanity  will  incline  'em  to  have  consideration  for  Indi 
viduals  who  have  acted  from  Principle  and  their  good  sense 
will  tell  'em  that  the  more  moderate  are  the  general  condi 
tions ;  the  more  solid  and  permanent  will  be  the  union  for  if 
the  conditions  were  extremely  repugnant  to  the  general  way 
of  thinking,  it  would  be  only  the  mere  patchwork  of  a  day 
which  the  first  breath  of  wind  will  discompose  and  the  first 
symptoms  of  a  rupture  betwixt  the  Bourbon  Powers  and  Great 
Britain  absolutely  overturn — but  I  really  have  no  apprehensions 
of  this  kind  whilst  Lord  and  General  Howe  have  the  direction 
of  affairs,  and  flatter  myself  that  under  their  auspices  an  ac- 


APPENDIX. 


327 


commodation  may  be  built  on  so  solid  a  foundation  as  not  to 
be  shaken  by  any  such  incident — in  this  persuasion  and  on 
these  principles  I  shall  most  sincerely  and  zealously  contrib 
ute  all  in  my  power  to  so  desirable  an  end,  and  if  no  unto 
ward  accidents  fall  out  which  no  human  foresight  can  guard 
against  I  will  answer  with  my  life  for  the  success. 

"From  my  present  situation  and  ignorance  of  certain 
facts  I  am  sensible  that  I  hazard  proposing  things  which  can 
not  without  difficulties  be  comply 'd  with ;  I  can  only  act 
from  surmise,  therefore  hope  allowances  will  be  made  for  my 
circumstances.  I  will  suppose  then  that  (exclusive  of  the 
Troops  requisite  for  the  security  of  Rhode  Island  and  N. 
York)  General  Howe's  Army  (comprehending  every  species, 
British,  Hessians  and  Provincials)  amounts  to  twenty  thou- 
shand  men  capable  to  take  the  field  and  act  offensively ;  by 
which  I  mean  to  move  to  any  part  of  the  Continent  where 
occasion  requires — I  will  suppose  that  the  General's  design 
with  this  force  is  to  clear  the  Jersey's  and  take  possession  of 
Philadelphia — but  in  my  opinion  the  taking  possession  of 
Philadelphia  will  not  have  any  decisive  consequences — the 
Congress  and  People  adhering  to  the  Congress  have  already 
made  up  their  minds  for  the  event ;  already  They  have  turn'd 
their  eyes  to  other  places  where  They  can  fix  their  seat  of 
residence,  carry  on  in  some  measure  their  Government;  in 
short  expecting  this  event  They  have  devis'd  measures  for  pro 
tracting  the  War  in  hopes  of  some  favourable  turn  of  affairs 
in  Europe — the  taking  possession  therefore  of  Philadelphia 
or  any  or  two  Towns  more,  which  the  General  may  have  in 
view,  will  not  be  decisive— to  bring  matters  to  a  conclusion,  it 
is  necessary  to  unhinge  or  dissolve,  if  I  may  so  express  my 
self,  the  whole  system  or  machine  of  resistance,  or  in  other 
terms,  Congress  Government — this  system  or  machine,  as 
affairs  now  stand,  depends  entirely  on  the  circumstances  and 
disposition  of  the  People  of  Maryland  Virginia  and  Pennsyl 
vania — if  the  Province  of  Maryland  or  the  greater  part  of  it  is 
reduc'd  or  submits,  and  the  People  of  Virginia  are  prevented 
or  intimidated  from  marching  aid  to  the  Pennsylvania  Army 
the  whole  machine  is  dissolv'd  and  a  period  put  to  the  War, 


328  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

to  accomplish  which,  is,  the  object  of  the  scheme  which  I  now 
take  the  liberty  of  offering  to  the  consideration  of  his  Lordship 
and  the  General,  and  if  it  is  adopted  in  full  I  am  so  confident 
of  the  success  that  I  wou'd  stake  my  life  on  the  issue — I  have 
at  the  same  time  the  comfort  to  reflect,  that  in  pointing  out 
measures  which  I  know  to  be  the  most  effectual  I  point  out 
those  which  will  be  attended  with  no  bloodshed  or  desolation 
to  the  Colonies.  As  the  difficulty  of  passing  and  of  re-pass 
ing  the  North  River  and  the  apprehensions  from  General 
Carleton's  Army  will  I  am  confident  keep  the  New  England- 
ers  at  home,  or  at  least  confine  'em  to  the  East  side  the 
River ;  and  as  their  Provinces  are  at  present  neither  the  seat  of 
Government  strength  nor  Politicks  I  cannot  see  that  any  of 
fensive  operations  against  these  Provinces  wou'd  answer  any 
sort  of  Purpose — to  secure  N.  York  and  Rhode  Island 
against  their  attacks  will  be  sufficient.  On  the  supposition 
then,  that  General  Howe's  Army  (including  every  species  of 
Troops)  amounts  to  twenty  or  even  eighteen  thoushand  men  at 
liberty  to  move  to  any  part  of  the  Continent ;  as  fourteen 
thoushand  will  be  more  than  sufficient  to  clear  the  Jersey's 
and  take  possession  of  Philadelphia,  I  wou'd  propose  that 
four  thoushand  men  be  immediately  embark'd  in  transports, 
one  half  of  which  shou'd  proceed  up  the  Patomac  and  take 
post  at  Alexandria,  the  other  half  up  Chesepeak  Bay  and 
possess  themselves  of  Annapolis.  They  will  most  probably 
meet  with  no  opposition  in  taking  possession  of  these  Posts, 
and  when  possess'd  they  are  so  very  strong  by  nature  that  a 
few  hours  work  and  some  trifling  artillery  will  secure  them 
against  the  attacks  of  a  much  greater  force  than  can  possibly 
be  brought  down  against  them — their  communication  with 
the  shipping  will  be  constant  and  sure— for  at  Alexandria 
Vessels  of  a  very  considerable  burthen  (of  five  or  six  hundred 
Tons  for  instance)  can  lie  in  close  to  the  shore,  and  at  Annapo 
lis  within  musket  shot — all  the  necessaries  and  refreshments 
for  an  Army  are  near  at  hand,  and  in  the  greatest  abundance — 
Kent  Island  will  supply  that  of  Annapolis  and  every  part  on 
both  banks  of  the  Patomac  that  of  Alexandria.  These  Posts 
may  with  ease  support  each  other,  as  it  is  but  two  easy  days 


APPENDIX. 


329 


march  from  one  to  the  other,  and  if  occasion  requires  by  a 
single  days  march,  They  may  join  *  and  conjunctly  carry  on 
their  operations  wherever  it  shall  be  thought  eligible  to  direct 
'em ;  whether  to  take  possession  of  Baltimore  or  post  them 
selves  on  some  spot  on  the  Westward  bank  of  the  Susque- 
hanna  which  is  a  point  of  the  utmost  importance — but  here  I 
must  beg  leave  to  observe  that  there  is  a  measure  which  if 
the  General  assents  to  and  adopts  will  be  attended  with  mo 
mentous  and  the  most  happy  consequences — I  mean  that 
from  these  Posts  proclamations  of  pardon  shou'd  be  issued  to 
all  those  who  come  in  at  a  given  day,  and  I  will  answer  for  it 
with  my  life — that  all  the  Inhabitants  of  that  great  tract  south 
ward  of  the  Patapsico  and  lying  betwixt  the  Patomac  and 
Chesepeak  Bay  and  those  on  the  eastern  Shore  of  Maryland 
will  immediately  lay  down  their  arms — but  .this  is  not  all,  I 
am  much  mistaken  if  those  potent  and  populous  German  dis 
tricts,  Frederic  County  in  Maryland  and  York  in  Pennsyl 
vania  do  not  follow  their  example — These  Germans  are  ex 
tremely  numerous,  and  to  a  Man  have  hitherto  been  the 
most  staunch  Assertors  of  the  American  cause ;  but  at  the 
same  time  are  so  remarkably  tenacious  of  their  property  and 
apprehensive  of  the  least  injury  being  done  to  their  fine  farms 
that  I  have  no  doubt  when  They  see  a  probability  of  their 
Country  becoming  the  seat  of  War  They  will  give  up  all 
opposition  but  if  contrary  to  my  expectations  a  force  should 
be  assembled  at  Alexandria  sufficient  to  prevent  the  Corps 
detach'd  thither  from  taking  possession  immediately  of  the 
place,  it  will  make  no  disadvantageous  alteration,  but  rather 
the  reverse — a  variety  of  spots  near  Alexandria  on  either  bank 
of  the  Patomac  may  be  chosen  for  Posts  equally  well  calcu 
lated  for  all  the  great  purposes  I  have  mention'd— viz— for 

"  *  On  the  Road  from  Annapolis  to  Queen  Anne  there  is  one 
considerable  River  to  be  pass'd,  but  as  the  ships  boats  can  easily 
be  brought  round  from  the  Bay  to  the  usual  place  of  passage  or 
Ferry,  this  is  no  impediment  if  the  Two  Corps  chuse  to  unite 
They  may  by  a  single  days  march  either  at  Queen  Amies  or 
Maryborough." 


330  GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 

the  reduction  or  compulsion  to  submission  of  the  whole  Prov 
ince  of  Maryland  for  the  preventing  or  intimidating  Virginia 
from  sending  aids  to  Pennsylvania — for  in  fact  if  any  force  is 
assembled  at  Alexandria  sufficient  to  oppose  the  Troops  sent 
against  it,  getting  possession  of  it,  it  must  be  at  the  expence 
of  the  more  Northern  Army,  as  they  must  be  compos'd  of 
those  Troops  which  were  otherwise  destin'd  for  Pennsylvania 
— to  say  all  in  a  word,  it  will  unhinge  and  dissolve  the  whole 
system  of  defence.  I  am  so  confident  of  the  event  that  I  will 
venture  to  assert  with  the  penalty  of  my  life  if  the  plan  is 
fully  adopted,  and  no  accidents  (such  as  a  rupture  betwixt 
the  Powers  of  Europe)  intervenes  that  in  less  than  two 
months  from  the  date  of  the  proclamation  not  a  spark  of  this 
desolating  war  remains  unextinguished  in  any  part  of  the 
Continent." 


INDEX. 


ACCOUNTS  of  Washington  set 
tled,  276. 

Adams,  John,  99,  101. 

Adams,  John  Quincy,  322. 

Adams,  Samuel,  94,  102,  125. 

Admiralty  courts,  87,  88,  89., 

Admiralty  jurisdiction,  91,  93. 

Aix  la  Chapelle,  Treaty  of,  35. 

Alamance,  battle  of,  64. 

Albany,  congress  at,  80. 

Alexander,  Sir  William,  35. 

Allerton,  Major,  5. 

Alliance,  The  French,  193  ;  dis 
tasteful  to  Washington,  193, 
194  ;  entered  into,  195. 

Americanism  of  Washington, 
299;  his  opinion  of,  319. 

Amherst,  General,  120. 

Andre  captured  ;  tried  by  court- 
martial  ;  Lafayette  on  the 
court ;  found  guilty  of  being 
a  spy,  and  executed  as  a  spy, 
229,  230. 

Annapolis,  Washington  resigns 
his  commission  at,  278. 

Arnold,  Benedict,  109 ;  at  Sara 
toga,  178  ;  badly  treated  by 
Congress,  218  ;  put  in  com 
mand  of  Philadelphia,  219  ; 


marries  Miss  Shippen,  223 ; 
passed  over  by  Congress 
in  promotion,  222  ;  charges 
against,  preferred  by  Reed, 
222  ;  intrigue  with  Andre, 
225  ;  found  guilty  and  sen 
tenced  to  be  reprimanded  in 
orders,  226  ;  assigned  to  com 
mand  West  Point ;  arranges 
to  sell  the  post  to  Sir  Henry 
Clinton,  227. 
Assistance,  writ  of,  90. 

Ball,  Mary,  her  family  and  edu 
cation,  9. 

Bayard,  John,  159. 

Beaujeu,  De,  49. 

Berkeley,  Sir  William,  investi 
gates  massacre  at  Piscata- 
way,  7. 

Board  of  War,  185. 

Boston  port  bill,  98  ;  massacre, 
98  ;  evacuated,  117. 

Braddock,  Major-General  Ed 
ward,  39  ;  his  council  of  war, 
39  ;  appoints  Washington  aid- 
de-camp,  41 ;  marches  from 
Cumberland,  46  ;  killed,  54. 

Brandywine,  battle  of,  164. 


332 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


Brooklyn  Heights,  battle  of,  141. 

Brooks,  John,  brigadier  gen 
eral,  321. 

Burgoyne,  Sir  John,  146  ;  his 
surrender,  178. 

Byrd,  Colonel  William,  18. 


Cadwalader,  John,  159. 

Camden,  battle  of,  243. 

Carleton,  General  Sir  Guy,  121, 
145,  272. 

Carrington,  Edward,  quarter 
master  general,  321. 

Carroll,  Charles,  of  Carrollton, 
95- 

Carroll,  John,  Provincial  of  the 
Society  of  Jesus,  101. 

Carter,  Landon,  161. 

Caswell,  Richard,  95  ;  defeats 
McDonald,  118. 

Cavalier  theory  of  life,  137. 

Champlain,  line  of  Lake,  120. 

Charles  II,  King  of  Maryland, 
62. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  123. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  209  ; 
conquers  the  Northwest,  210. 

Clinton,  George,  Governor  of 
New  York,  182. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  121,  139, 
140 ;  succeeds  Sir  William 
Howe  in  command,  195  ;  at 
tacks  Savannah,  241  ;  captures 
Charleston,  241. 

Confederation  impossible  until 
Virginia  gave  up  the  Western 
lands,  245  ;  reasons  why,  245, 
246  ;  weakness  of,  285. 

Congress  at  Albany,  80  ;  at  New 


York,    82  ;    at    Philadelphia, 
77- 

"Congress's  Own,"  in,  285. 

Connecticut  regiments,  panic  of, 
142. 

Conococheague,  44. 

Constitution,  Washington's  in 
fluence  in  framing  it  and  hav 
ing  it  adopted,  297,  298. 

Continental  Congress  called,  77  ; 
corruption  of,  183. 

Contrecceur,  29-32. 

Convention  at  Annapolis,  295  ; 
at  Philadelphia,  295. 

Conway  cabal,  188,  189  ;  Cad 
walader  fights  Conway  about 
it,  191  ;  Washington's  letter 
to  Conway,  189. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  146,  155  ;  in 
the  South,  237,  239,  240  ;  in 
Virginia,  250  ;  at  York, 
252. 

County  committees,  76. 

Craik,  James,  director  of  the 
hospital,  321. 

Cresap,  Michael,  109. 

Crown  Point  captured,  no. 

Cumberland,  30-42. 


Dayton,  Jonathan  A.  G.,  321. 

De  Barras,  254. 

De  Choise,  254. 

D'Estaing,  Count,  214. 

De  Fersen's  description  of  Wash 
ington,  248. 

De  Grasse,  251,  252,  254. 

De  Guichen,  249. 

De  Kalb  commands  Maryland 
and  Delaware  line,  242. 


INDEX. 


333 


Democrats,     Mrs.     Washington 

and  the,  310. 
De    Rochambeau  arrives,  236  ; 

arrives  with  an  army  and  a 

fleet,  247. 
Dictator,  Washington  made,  156, 

171. 
Dinner   napkins  at    Braddock's 

rout,  51. 

Dinwiddie,  Lieutenant-Govern 
or,  27. 
Dispatch  of    Howe's  captured, 

162. 
Dorchester    Heights    occupied, 

116. 
Dunbar,    Colonel,   Forty-eighth 

Regiment,  46. 
Dunmore,  Lord,  118-124. 

Fairfax,  Anne,  marries  Law 
rence  Washington,  16. 

Fairfax,  Lord,  19. 

Fairfax  resolutions,  76. 

First  City  Troop,  106. 

Flag,  first  Continental,  107. 

Florida,  Blanca  proposes  peace, 
244. 

France,  colonies  to  supply  men 
and  money  for  war  with,  37. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  threatens 
the  Pennsylvanians  with  "  The 
Hussars,"  44. 

Fraunce's  Tavern,  Washington 
takes  leave  of  his  officers  at 
276. 

Frazier,  Lieutenant,  29. 

Frederick,  County  Court  of,  re 
pudiates  stamp  act,  65. 

French  as  allies,  not  as  leaders, 


232  ;  depredations  on  Amer 
ican  commerce,  320. 
Fry,  Colonel,  27,  28. 

Gadsden,  Christopher,  95-101. 

Gage,  Lieutenant-Colonel,  46, 
47  ;  at  Boston,  98  ;  evacuates, 
117. 

Gates,  General  Horatio,  156 ; 
assigned  to  the  Army  of  the 
North,  176  ;  member  Board  of 
War,  1 86  ;  president  Board  of 
War,  1 86  ;  assigned  to  com 
mand  in  the  South,  242. 

Genet,  French  minister,  issues 
letters  of  marque,  307 ;  prog 
ress  through  the  country,  307  ; 
fits  out  La  Petite  Democrat 
and  sends  her  to  sea,  308  ;  re 
called,  310. 

Germaine,  Lord  George,  cen 
sures  the  British  generals, 

195. 

Germantown,  battle  of,  168. 
Gerry,  Elbridge,  sent  to  France, 

320. 

Gimat,  Major,  257. 
Graves,  Admiral,  254,  255. 
Grayson  at  Monmouth,  201. 
Great  Bridge,  battle  of,  118. 
Greene,    Nathanael,    109,    161  ; 

quartermaster  general,  192  ;  at 

Monmouth,  202  ;  sent  South, 

237- 

Halkett,  Colonel  Sir  Peter,  of 
44th,  43;  killed,  57  ;  brigade 
major,  killed,  57. 

Hancock,  John,  183. 


334 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


Hand,    Edward,   adjutant   gen 
eral,  321. 
Hamilton,    Alexander,    sent    to 

Gates,  179  ;  at  Yorktown,  256 ; 

Secretary  of  Treasury,    300 ; 

Chief  of  Staff  and  Inspector 

General,  320. 
Hazen's      Canadian     regiment, 

252. 
Heath,  General,  at  West  Point, 

252. 
Henry's,  Patrick,  defiance,  86; 

Governor    of    Virginia,    182  ; 

the  Con  way  cabal,  189. 
Hillsborough,  Gates  at,  242. 
Hobby,  William,  13. 
Howard,    John     E.,     brigadier 

general,  321. 
Howe,  Lord,  114. 
Howe,  Sir  William,  114  ;   sails 

from  New  York,  162  ;  returns 

to  England  to  defend  himself 

against    Lord    George    Ger- 

maine's  attacks,  195. 
Hunting  Creek,  Mount  Vernon, 

II,  12. 

Illinois,  County  of,  210,  245. 
Independence,    movement     to 
ward,  118. 
Irving,  Washington,  viii. 

Jacobitism  on  the  Chesapeake, 
61. 

Jay,  John,  183  ;  Chief  Justice, 
315  ;  minister  to  England, 
315  ;  negotiates  a  treaty,  316 ; 
treaty  denounced,  317  ;  Wash 
ington  signs  it,  318. 


Jefferson,  Governor  of  Virginia, 
246  ;  Secretary  of  State,  300. 

Johnson,  Thomas,  father,  a 
Jacobite,  61  ;  nominated 
Washington,  95,  101-104 ', 
Governor  of  Maryland,  182  ; 
Secretary  of  State,  314. 

Jumonville  killed,  31. 

Jury,  trial  by,  87. 

Kentucky,  County  of,  300. 

Knox,  Henry,  109,  161  ;  Secre 
tary  of  War,  300  ;  refuses  to 
serve  as  major  general,  321. 

Lafayette  goes  to  France  for 
Washington,  235,  247. 

Langlade's,  Charles  de,  French 
account  of  Braddock's  defeat, 
48. 

Laurens,  Henry,  268. 

Laurens,  John,  President  6f 
Congress,  189. 

Lear,  Tobias,  secretary,  322. 

Lee,  Henry,  major,  captures 
Paulus  Hook,  236  ;  his  legion 
sent  South,  250 ;  major  gen 
eral,  321. 

Lee,  Major-General  Charles, 
106-114,  J47.  156,  198;  his 
capture,  148  ;  "  plan  "  of,  148, 
vide  Appendix,  325  ;  treason 
of,  199  ;  at  Monmouth,  202  ; 
court-martialed  and  found 
guilty,  204  ;  dismissed  from 
the  army  by  Congress,  204  ; 
fights  Colonel  John  Laurens, 
aid-de-camp  to  Washington, 
205. 

Lee,  R.  H.,  95  ;  moves  for  in- 


INDEX. 


335 


dependence,  130;    friendship 

for  Washington,  235. 
Light  Horse,  troop  of,  158. 
Lincoln,  General  Benjamin,  161 ; 

loses  Charleston,  236. 
Littlepage,  Colonel  Lewis,  18. 
Lovell,  James,  189. 
Lowland  beauty,  67. 

Manifest  destiny,  109. 

Marshall,  Chief-Justice,  viii ; 
sent  to  France,  320. 

Maryland  in  the  Revolution, 
127  ;  declares  independence, 
130  ;  line  at  Camden,  243  ; 
joins  the  confederation,  286. 

Mason's,  George,  ancestor  a 
Jacobite,  61  ;  friendship  for 
Washington,  75  ;  opposed  to 
disunion,  94. 

McDonald,  Donald,  defeated, 
118. 

McDowell,  plan  of  the  first  bat 
tle  of  Manassas,  212. 

McHenry,  James,  Secretary  of 
War,  321. 

Meadows,  Great,  31. 

Meadows,  Little,  30. 

Mecklenburg  declares  inde 
pendence,  128. 

Meeting  of  officers  of  the  army, 

273- 
Mercer,     Hugh,    General,    57 ; 

killed,  154. 
Miiflin,    quartermaster    general 

and  President  Board  of  War, 

185. 

Monmouth,  Court-House,  bat 
tle  of,  200. 

Monongahela,  battle  of,  47. 


Montgomery,  Richard,  110,208. 
Montreal  captured,  no. 
Moore's  Creek,  battle  of,  118. 
Morgan,  Daniel,  109,  163,  238. 
Morgan,  Jacob,  159. 
Morris,  Gouverneur,  314. 
Morris,  Robert,  268. 
Moultrie,  William,  139. 
Mount  Vernon,  12. 
Murray,  Mrs.,  lunches  Sir  Wil 
liam  Howe,  142. 
Muse,  Battaille,  23. 
Mutiny  in  i778-'79,  234. 

Necessity,  Fort,  useless,  31  ; 
surrender  of,  33. 

Neutrality,  proclamation  of,  306. 

New  England,  the  rising  of, 
176. 

Newport  occupied,  215  ;  Sulli 
van's  attack  on,  215  ;  failure 
of  French  co-operation  at,  215. 

New  York,  Congress  at,  82. 

Nicola,  Colonel  Lewis,  271. 

O'Hara,  General,  surrenders  the 
British  army  at  Yorktown, 
262. 

Otis,  James,  99. 

Oxford,  Virginians  at,  13. 

Pakenham,  Sir  Edward  M.,  ix. 
Paris,  Treaty  of,  58. 
Parke,  Colonel  John,  18. 
Parker,  Sir  Peter,  140. 
Patton  at  Monmouth,  20. 
Paulus  Hook,   Henry  Lee  cap 
tures,  236. 
Peace,     treaty    of,    275 ;     pro- 


336 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


claimed    in    general     orders, 

275- 

Peters,  Richard,  on  Board  of 
War,  1 86. 

Philadelphia  occupied,  167  ; 
evacuation  of,  195. 

Pickering,  Timothy,  Board  of 
War,  186. 

Pinckney,  Charles  Cotesworth, 
95  ;  sent  to  France,  320  ;  ma 
jor  general,  321. 

Pinckney,  Thomas,  negotiates 
treaty  with  Spain,  310. 

Piscataway,  massacre  at,  5. 

Pope,  Anne,  marries  John  Wash 
ington,  9. 

Potomac  Company,  289,  292  ; 
compact,  291,  293. 

Prescott,  Edward,  2. 

Princeton,  battle  of,  154. 

Pulaski  killed  at  Savannah,  241. 

Puritan  theory  of  life,  136. 

Putnam,  Israel,  109. 

Quebec  Act  offensive  to  the 
colonies,  roi,  209. 

Rahl  attacks  White  Plains,  143. 

Ramsay,  Nathaniel,  at  Mon- 
mouth,  201. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  member  of 
Congress,  101 ;  attorney  gen 
eral,  300. 

Randolph,  Peyton,  President  of 
Congress,  100. 

Randolph's,  Sir  John,  forged 
Washington  letters,  185. 

Rebellion,  status  of,  119. 

Rebels  denned  by  Washington, 


Rhode  Island  captures  the  Gas- 

pe,  64. 
Roman  Catholics,  hatred  of,  37, 

58,  59- 
Rush's,    Benjamin,    anonymous 

letter  to  Patrick  Henry  and 

Laurens,  189. 
Rutledge,  John,  139. 

St.  Clair,  Sir  John,  42-57. 

St.  Simon,  Marquis  de,  254. 

Self-defense,  right  of,  206. 

Shako  of  British  grenadier  ruin 
ous,  42. 

Shay's  rebellion,  302. 

Shirley,  William,  killed,  57. 

Smith,  William  S.,  brigadier 
general,  321. 

Smuggling  in  New  England,  60. 

Stamp  Act,  79,  85  ;  repudiated 
in  Maryland,  165  ;  and  in 
South  Carolina,  89. 

Stamp  officer  for  Maryland  a 
fugitive,  89. 

Stark,  John,  109. 

Stedman's  opinion  of  Washing 
ton,  155. 

Stephen,  General  Adam,  161. 

Steuben,  Von,  drills  the  army, 
196. 

Stirling,  Lord,  141-161,  252 ; 
at  Monmouth,  202. 

Stony  Point,  Wayne  captures, 
236. 

Strategy  of  the  war,  134  ;  of  the 
Revolution,  207,  210,  211. 

Sullivan,  General  John,  161,  170; 
quarrels  with  the  French  at 
Newport,  231. 


INDEX. 


337 


Taileton,  Colonel  Bannastre, 
241  ;  raid  to  Charlottesville* 
251. 

Tax  on  tea,  94, 96 ;  thrown  over 
board  at  Boston,  97 ;  vessel 
with  tea,  the  Peggy  Stewart, 
burned  at  Annapolis,  97. 

Taxation  without  representa 
tion,  63,  64. 

Ticonderoga  captured,  no. 

Tilghman,  Mathew,  101. 

Tilghman,  Tench — his  ride,  car 
rying  the  news  to  Congress, 
263. 

Tories,  the,  224 ;  in  the  Middle 
States  and  the  South,  288-311. 

Treasons,  Statute  of,  87. 

Trent,  Captain,  29. 

Trenton,  surprise  of,  151  ;  sec 
ond  battle  of,  151. 

Truman,  Major,  trial  of,  7. 

Trumbull,  Jonathan,  157. 

Trumbull,  Joseph,  ex-Commis 
sary-General  on  Board  of 
War,  1 86. 

Union,  projects  for,  80  ;  neces 
sity  for,  81,  82;  Washington 
moves  for,  296  ;  necessity  for, 
313. 

Valley  Forge,  182  ;  troops  at, 
182. 

Van  Braam,  Jacob,  23,  33. 

Varnum,  of  Rhode  Island,  180. 

Venango,  26. 

Vergennes  declines  to  co-operate 
with  Florida  Blanca  in  forc 
ing  peace  on  the  basis  of  the 
uti  possidetis,  244. 


Viomenil,    Baron    de,    254 ;    at 

Yorktown,  258. 

Virginia  club  at  Edinburgh,  18. 
Virginia  proposes  independence, 

130. 
Virginians,  extravagance  of,  17  ; 

culture  of,  18. 

Wadsworth,  Jeremiah,  commis 
sary  general,  192. 

Ward,  General  Artemas,  114, 
183. 

Washington,  Augustine,  marries 
Jane  Butler  and  Mary  Ball, 
9-10. 

Washington,  Fort,  capture  of, 
144. 

Washington,  George,  born,  10  ; 
a  typical  Virginian,  19  ;  sur 
veyor  for  Lord  Fairfax,  21  ; 
county  surveyor,  22  ;  goes  to 
Barbadoes,  22  ;  assistant  ad 
jutant  general  Northern  Dis 
trict  of  Virginia,  23  ;  envoy  to 
Indians  on  the  Ohio,  25  ;  pro 
moted  lieutenant  colonel,  27; 
attacks  and  kills  Jumonville, 
31  ;  resigns,  38  ;  aid-de-camp 
to  Braddock  as  captain,  41  ; 
conduct  in  battle,  54  ;  rides 
to  bring  up  Dunbar,  55  ;  mar 
ries  Martha  Dandridge  Custis, 
69  ;  as  vestryman,  74 ;  dele 
gate  to  Congress,  77  ;  appoint 
ed  commander  in  chief,  105  ; 
marches  the  army  to  New 
York,  122  ;  favors  independ 
ence,  132  ;  as  a  letter- writer, 
139  ;  evacuates  Long  Island, 
141  ;  resigns  his  commission, 


338 


GENERAL   WASHINGTON. 


267  ;  president  of  the  Consti 
tutional  Convention,  295  ;  his 
influence  there,  296 ;  Presi 
dent,  298  ;  Adams  appoints 
him  lieutenant  general  and 
commander  in  chief,  320 ; 
death  of,  323. 

Washington,  John,  2. 

Washington,  Lawrence,  marries 
Mildred  Warner,  9. 

Washington,  Lawrence,  marries 
Anne  Fairfax,  u. 

Washington,  Mary  Ball,  man 
agement  of  her  children  and 
their  estates,  12. 

Washingtons  of  Virginia,  the,  I. 

Wayne  goes  to  Virginia,  250. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  ix. 

Western  lands,  value  of,  207. 

Wharton,  President  of  Pennsyl 
vania,  180. 

Whisky  insurrection,  303. 

White  Plains,  battle  of,  143. 


Wilkinson,  James,  chief  of  staff 

*  for  Gates,  187  ;  carries  report 
of  Burgoyne's  surrender  to 
Congress,  187  ;  tells  Stirling's 
staff  that  the  Board  of  War  was 
going  to  supersede  Washing 
ton  with  Gates,  188  ;  tells  of 
Conway's  letter  to  Gates, 
188. 

Williams,  Thomas,  14. 

Wills  Creek,  28. 

Wilson,  James  Grant,  ix-x. 

Witch  trial  by  Prescott,  3. 

Yorktown,  in  Virginia — Corn- 
wallis  reaches  there,  252  ;  Con 
tinental  troops  there,  252  ; 
French  troops  there,  252 ;  army 
marches  to,  252  ;  De  Grasse 
re-enforces  Lafayette  there, 
254 ;  troops  at,  256  ;  siege  of, 
256  ;  assault  at,  256  ;  capitula 
tion  of,  261,  262. 


THE    END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


LD  21A-50m-3,'62 
( 07097810 )476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


LD21-5m-l,'39(705; 


£93 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


